A new day indeed! Jon Bernthal is taking his Punisher character from television to film with a part in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Bernthal has joined the cast of that fourth Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which will shoot in England this summer ahead of a release date of July 31, 2026, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Brand New Day marks the first appearance of Bernthal’s Frank Castle a.k.a. the Punisher on the big screen. That iteration of the violent vigilante made his debut in Netflix’s Daredevil series and then got his own series on the streaming platform with The Punisher. Bernthal reprised the part for Season 1 of the Disney+ revival Daredevil: Born Again and will return for Season 2. Plus, Disney+ is prepping a Punisher standalone special that Bernthal is co-writing.
Jessica Miglio/Netflix
Tom Holland will return to play Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man in Brand New Day, alongside Zendaya as Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson and Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds. Sadie Sink and Liza Colón-Zayas have also joined the cast in undisclosed roles, and Destin Daniel Cretton is directing the picture.
On X, fans reacted to the news of Bernthal’s casting.
“Finally!” wrote @Dannyis1337, sharing an image of the comic-book versions of Spidey and The Punisher squaring off on the cover of The Amazing Spider-Man #129.
“Now that’s what I am talking about. Frank Castle all the way!” wrote @Hassankhan02.
“This should be good,” said @Drakester49.
“Let’s f***ing go,” wrote @davudysrgl.
@intotalkaos, meanwhile, posted clapping emoji about the prospect of a “gritty, street-level Spider-Man.”
But @Frandaman9043 cast skepticism about Castle’s Brand New Day appearance — and criticism about Daredevil: Born Again — writing, “This will be a toned-down, Disney Punisher, compared to the terrible iteration of him in Daredevil: Butchered Again and the superior Netflix version.”
Bernthal and Holland previously costarred in the 2017 film Pilgrimage, and it was during production of that film that they helped each other with their Marvel audition tapes, Bernthal told Jimmy Kimmel in April.
“I will take credit that in [Holland’s] audition tape, he did this thing where he sort of [slid] into the scene, and I gave him the note: ‘Tom, maybe you should sort of run up that wall and do a double backflip and then start the scene,’” the actor recalled. “He was like, ‘Yeah, you think I should do that? That’s not too much?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t think any of these other fools are able to do that.’”
Spider Man: Brand New Day, In Theaters, July 31, 2026