UPDATE 2: The reviews are in and they back the reactions up: Brand New Day debuts at 90% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Full breakdown at the link.
UPDATE: The secret survived the screening but not the red carpet. Singer Steve Lacy spoiled Sadie Sink’s character during a premiere carpet interview, calling Jean “the spoiler”. Full story at the link.
The first reactions to Spider-Man: Brand New Day are in, and they say Marvel has a monster on its hands.
The film held its world premiere in Hollywood on Monday night, and minutes after the screening ended, reactions started flooding social media, with THR’s roundup flatly concluding the movie is headed for monster-hit territory.
The Reactions
The Sadie Sink Secret Survived The Premiere (Almost)
Here’s the detail worth watching: a theater full of press and influencers just saw the entire movie, and nobody who watched it is spoiling who Sink plays. The studio locked the screening audience down hard, and director Destin Daniel Cretton told THR exactly why: “The movie is a better movie if you don’t know certain things.”
The screening held. The carpet didn’t. As noted in the update above, Steve Lacy let the answer to the Jean question slip on the red carpet, ending a secret that survived Comic-Con, test screenings, and the premiere audience itself. The Jean Grey coverage suddenly reads very differently.
The Buzz Was Already Building
The reactions land on top of a hype cycle that was already at full volume. Fandango’s Erik Davis teased ahead of the premiere that he was hearing very good things, and producer Amy Pascal said she and Kevin Feige stood up and cheered after watching Cretton’s director’s cut, something she said had never happened before on any of the Spider-Man films.
Feige credited Cretton with pulling the movie’s look from specific comic covers and even the Spider-Man PlayStation game, and the theatrical cut clocks in at 2 hours and 25 minutes, shorter than No Way Home but the second-longest of the Holland era.
The reactions were the first outside verdict, and the full reviews have since followed: Brand New Day debuted at 90% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Stakes
These reactions arrive with real money on the line. Brand New Day opens Friday tracking at $180 million to $190 million, the biggest opening of 2026, riding the best presales in five years without IMAX, and carrying Marvel’s entire theatrical year before the MCU goes dark until Avengers: Doomsday.
And as we argued this week, the superhero fatigue crowd is about to get its answer. It started tonight.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31, with Prime early screenings Wednesday and previews Thursday. For everything on the movie, check out our complete Brand New Day guide.
