Hollywood star Jon Bernthal is set to return as stone-cold vigilante Punisher in Tom Holland-starrer Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as per reports by the US media.
Destin Daniel Cretton is set to direct the latest Spider-Man movie from Sony and Marvel. Set to go on floors in England this year, the superhero fantasy film is expected to hit theatres in July 2026, according to US-based news portal The Hollywood Reporter.
Though makers are yet to make an official announcement about the upcoming film’s cast and storyline, netizens are speculating that the film will feature a host of villains, from crime bosses to alien symbiotes, as well as a couple of different versions of the Hulk.
Created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru, the Punisher is an antihero who made his first appearance in 1974 in The Amazing Spider-Man comic, issue 129. Punisher is depicted as a vigilante, waging a fierce war against crime, after the deaths of his wife and two children, who were assassinated by a mob for witnessing a killing in New York City's Central Park.
While Holland is set to reprise his role as Peter Parker aka Spider-Man in the upcoming film, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon will also return as MJ and Ned, respectively.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day reportedly takes off from the point where the previous movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), ended.
Known for his performance in films like Snitch (2013), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Fury (2014), The Accountant (2016), Baby Driver (2017), and Ford v Ferrari (2019), Bernthal portrayed Frank Castle/Punisher in the second season of MCU’s Daredevil (2016), the spin-off series The Punisher (2017–2019), and the revival series Daredevil: Born Again (2025–present).