SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY Stunt Coordinator Reveals the Film’s Hardest Fight and They Don’t Go Easy on Tom Holland

Spider-Man: Brand New Day gave fans some seriously awesome Spidey action, and pulling off the movie’s biggest fights required a lot more than digital trickery.

The film has become a monster hit, earning more than $2 billion worldwide in only 20 days. That’s a huge victory for Sony and Marvel Studios, and fans have been praising the fight sequences, with some calling them the best Spider-Man action ever put on the big screen.

A big part of that comes from the work of director Destin Daniel Cretton, star Tom Holland, and 2nd Unit Director and Supervising Stunt Coordinator Peng Zhang.

Zhang recently opened up about the most difficult fight the team had to pull off, along with Holland’s unusual ability to handle the same demanding stunt work designed for professional stunt performers.

According to Zhang, the toughest sequence was the climactic battle between Peter Parker and The Hand inside the detention level of the Department of Damage Control facility.

It’s also one of the movie’s biggest moments for Peter. After being nearly beaten to death by The Hand and Damage Control agents, Peter finally comes to terms with the fact that Peter Parker and Spider-Man aren’t two competing halves of his life. They’re both him. Once that clicks, Spider-Man cuts loose.

The resulting fight shows just how dangerous a fully powered Spider-Man can be as he tears through agents and ninjas with speed, strength, acrobatics, and some killer choreography.

Making the sequence work, however, became a major technical headache because the filmmakers decided to shoot it inside an actual abandoned prison rather than build the location on a soundstage.

Zhang explained: “I have to say what gave me the most trouble is the end fight with the ninjas. The reason is we chose to shoot the sequence in a real location, which is a prison. They don’t use it anymore. So we’re shooting there.

“It gave us a big challenge of how we’re going to do all that wire work because everything there is concrete and steel. It’s not like in a stage [where] you can set up a wire, pick a point, and you can easily move your camera, but everything you saw in the movie is actually there.

“It’s nothing CGI, and it’s actually not a set. Everything’s real: steel bars and concrete for us to pull off those moves. It’s difficult enough on a stage, then when you go there: all the wirework is the people pulling the wire.

“They cannot even see the person. They are somewhere else. So it was so complicated to put that sequence together. But luckily we’ve done it.”

Knowing that makes the prison fight even better! The stunt team couldn’t simply redesign walls, ceilings, and anchor points around whatever movement they wanted.

They had to make Spider-Man’s wire work function inside a real structure filled with concrete and steel, while crew members operating those wires sometimes couldn’t even see the performer they were controlling.

That practical approach helps give the fight its physical punch, and Holland himself is an important part of why the Spider-Man action can get so ambitious.

Holland has been bringing his gymnastics and acrobatics experience to Spider-Man since his earliest days with Marvel Studios. He famously incorporated real flips into his original audition, and that physical ability has continued to shape how Spider-Man moves on screen.

Zhang says the stunt team takes full advantage of it. Rather than creating an easier version of a stunt whenever Holland steps in, they keep the difficulty level high.

“This one is quite special because when he [Tom] performs in the action, even with the mask on, you really feel how he acts in the suit with the action. So we actually really benefit from what Tom can do.

“We design something because Tom is so good, we don’t really hold back. It’s not, ‘Okay, this is Tom. Let’s design something easy.’ The things in the action we do with him are always the same as his stunt double or the same as everybody else.

“We set the bar pretty high. And he actually didn’t have a lot of time to train, but he can always do it. It’s our luck to have an actor who can physically do stuff like this.”

That ability gives the filmmakers something valuable. Even when Spider-Man’s face is covered, Holland can still perform through his movement. The posture, flips, reactions, and physical choices become part of the character instead of simply getting a performer from one action beat to another.

It also explains why the stunt team doesn’t treat Holland like he needs the easy version. When he’s capable of performing material designed at the same level as his stunt double, Zhang and his team can build sequences around that ability rather than constantly working around an actor’s limitations.

Of course, professional stunt performers remain an essential part of creating action on this scale, especially when sequences involve serious risk. Holland’s athletic background simply gives the team another weapon to work with when designing Spider-Man’s movement and deciding what can be captured practically.

For Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that combination paid off.