Sony just launched a slick viral website for Spider-Man: Brand New Day at spideytracker.com, an interactive map that lets fans “track” Spider-Man sightings around the world.
On the surface, it’s a fun piece of marketing for Tom Holland’s next Spidey movie. But there’s one detail baked into the site that made us do a double-take. It surfaced just as a fan leak teased possible tour stops, including the NYC world premiere and a big Comic-Con appearance.
So we tried something different: we fed the site’s source to Claude, Anthropic’s AI, and asked what the build actually reveals. Yes, regular Claude, not the souped-up Fable 5 model forced offline this week. That’s a story for another day.
What it surfaced isn’t a leak. It’s something better for an afternoon of Spider-Man theory-crafting: Sony has quietly positioned Jacob Batalon’s Ned Leeds, Peter Parker’s best friend — well, his former best friend — as the guy watching Spider-Man’s every move.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Up front, so there’s no confusion: nothing in the code says “Ned is the villain.” This is a theory, a fun one built around a creative choice Sony didn’t have to make. Take it in that spirit.
Claude Found Ned Running The Whole Tracker
Strip away the animation, and the SpideyTracker site runs on an in-universe gimmick: the whole operation has a fictional host.
Per the site’s own text, that host is Ned Leeds, listed in the code as the app tracker’s “CEO and Founder.” The interface even teases a video yet to go live: “message from our CEO and Founder, Ned Leeds,” as well as what looks like the new trailer, rumored for Wednesday.
It’s Ned’s voice guiding the experience, too. The help panels written into the code are written in first person. “My sources tell me Spider-Man might be taking an appearance at some events,” one reads.
Another — attached to a villain-cataloging module the site calls Web Watch — brags about assembling “a collection of everyone we’ve been able to identify.”
Read that back.
A tech CEO has built a global surveillance network to log Spider-Man sightings, track his movements, and compile dossiers on his enemies, and that CEO is supposed to be Spidey’s best friend (or was). More below.
What Claude Revealed
- The SpideyTracker site has a trailer already loaded into it — labeled “Official Trailer” — but it’s hidden, switched off and waiting to go live.
- Sony has it set to roll out in stages: right now the site just says “CHECK BACK SOON,” with a next phase teed up that reads “PRODUCT LAUNCH TOMORROW.”
- A video “message from our CEO and Founder, Ned Leeds” is built and ready to drop when that next phase flips on.
- “Get Tickets” and “Events” buttons are already in place but hidden — events currently throw an “EVENTS COMING SOON” notice.
- In other words, the full experience — trailer, tickets, events, and the Ned video — is finished and just waiting on a switch, so the real launch looks imminent.
- The site sorts every Spider-Man sighting the same way we do: CONFIRMED vs. RUMORED, with TRAILER and EVENT tags too — and you can filter the map between confirmed and rumored.
- Ned is cast as the “CEO and Founder” of the whole tracker, narrating it in his own voice — the in-movie app from the CinemaCon footage, brought to life as a real website.
- There’s even a villain-tracking section called “Web Watch,” where Ned brags about cataloging everyone Spider-Man has gone up against.
This Isn’t Just Marketing — The App Is In The Movie
Here’s the part that takes this from cute to interesting: the SpideyTracker site isn’t a random promo. It’s pulled straight out of the film.
In the footage Sony showed exhibitors at CinemaCon back in April, Ned demonstrates the very app the website is built on. (We broke that connection down here.)
Early in the movie, Peter trails Ned to an apartment party and wanders into his old friend’s room, where he finds a bulletin board plastered with Spider-Man photos and news clippings.
Ned then reveals he’s built a “Spider-Tracker” app to log sightings, map the web-slinger’s movements, and figure out his secret identity.
He even claims to have narrowed Spidey down to two suspects: their old science teacher Mr. Harrington and Flash Thompson.
To be fair to Ned, his stated reason is sweet. He insists he doesn’t want to expose Spider-Man, he just wants to find him “to know, and hopefully thank him face-to-face” for saving Ned and his friends years ago. On its face, that’s the opposite of a villain origin.
But Ned Doesn’t Remember Peter — And That Changes Everything
Here’s the twist that makes the whole setup land differently.
Thanks to Doctor Strange’s spell at the end of No Way Home, the world forgot Peter Parker ever existed — MJ, Ned, everyone. In that CinemaCon scene, Ned doesn’t recognize his old best friend at all. Peter has to reintroduce himself under a fake name, “Maynard,” and watch his former life carry on without him.
Now sit with what that means for the tracker.
In the old movies, Ned knew Peter was Spider-Man and kept the secret, the loyal “guy in the chair.” That loyalty was the entire reason Ned was safe. Now it’s gone.
Ned isn’t a best friend protecting Peter’s identity anymore. He’s effectively a stranger, obsessively building surveillance tech to unmask a hero he has no personal tie to.
A devoted friend hunting your secret identity is a heartwarming subplot. A stranger doing the exact same thing — wall of clippings, working tracking app, a shortlist of suspects — is how a lot of Spider-Man villains start.
And the cruelest irony of all: the identity Ned is chasing belongs to the best friend he can no longer remember he had.
Ned As CEO Sets Off Spider-Man Alarm Bells
There’s also that job title to deal with.
The most famous CEO in Spider-Man’s world is Norman Osborn, founder of Oscorp, pillar of the community, and secretly the Green Goblin.
The friendly businessman who turns out to be the monster is one of the franchise’s oldest tricks. Casting Ned as a founder-CEO running point on Spider-Man surveillance leans right into that same archetype.
Maybe it’s an innocent ARG flourish. Maybe it’s a joke. Or maybe Sony is hiding a tell in plain sight.
The Ned Leeds Hobgoblin Connection
And Ned, specifically, comes with baggage, which is exactly the kind of history that makes Batalon’s expanded role here worth watching.
In the 1980s comics, the long-running Hobgoblin mystery paid off with a gut-punch: Ned Leeds — Peter’s friend and Daily Bugle colleague — was unmasked as the Hobgoblin.
A later retcon complicated the reveal, explaining that Ned had been brainwashed and set up as a patsy by the real Hobgoblin, Roderick Kingsley. But the image stuck: Ned Leeds as a man with a hidden, villainous second life.
So a heel turn for Ned isn’t fan fiction. It’s something the comics already put on the table.
Is This The “Villain No One Can Even See”?
Now connect it to the movie’s own marketing.
Sony’s official synopsis hypes “a powerful villain no one can even see,” a threat the studio has pointedly kept off-screen.
Most readings take that line literally: an invisible or telepathic figure, which is why the smart money points at Sadie Sink’s mystery character, widely theorized to be a Jean Grey variant pulling strings from the shadows.
But “no one can even see” has another possible meaning.
It can also describe a villain hiding in plain sight, someone so close to Peter that nobody thinks to look. A trusted friend. A smiling tech guy running a Spider-Man tracker while the world cheers him on, including the one person who used to know his secret and no longer remembers it.
The Catch: This Is Still A Theory
We’ll keep it honest: the SpideyTracker site is a marketing experience, and its “Ned as CEO” framing is probably an ARG gimmick meant to be charming, not a smuggled spoiler.
And the footage genuinely cuts against the theory: Ned’s stated motive is to thank Spider-Man, not destroy him. The most likely story here is exactly what it looks like: a lonely guy with a hobby and a working app. The Sadie Sink/Jean Grey read also remains the better-supported take on that synopsis line.
But erased history has a way of curdling good intentions. And of every character they could have installed as the all-seeing eye watching Spider-Man, Sony picked the one who has already been a secret villain once before and stripped away the loyalty that ever made him safe.
Whether that’s a wink, a coincidence, or something bigger, now’s a good time to keep an eye on Ned.
For the full villain lineup, cast, and every leak so far, check our Spider-Man: Brand New Day guide. Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters July 31, 2026.
