My 4 favorite deep cut Spider-Man: Brand New Day easter eggs

I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It’s worth the hype, and is easily one of the best MCU movies in recent years. It’s a more mature story, adds a lot of nuance and emotion to this version of Peter Parker, and plants a whole lot of seeds that’ll probably come to fruition in an X-Men movie down the line.

And yes, we get a nod to Yelena and the New Avengers, some excellent Hulk fights, the return of Daredevil baddies The Hand and a few more bits of world-building within the MCU. But looking a bit deeper, there were nods to there bits of Spider-Man history and past movies.

No, I’m not talking about the comic covers they recreated with the intro scenes (though those are cool!), but more nods to the film lore itself, going all the way back to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film that started it all.

There’s a scene in Brand New Day that almost feels decades in the making, when Spidey chases down a helicopter and manages to web it up to a large crane — stranding the body-hopping baddie in the air (for a bit, at least).

But the idea of Spider-Man webbing up a helicopter in the air in a film? It’s a visual that dates back to one of the first teasers ever made for Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man film. The teaser saw Spidey chase down a chopper and trap it in a large spider web strung between the Twin Towers. Obviously, the events of 9/11 occurred not long after the teaser’s debut, and it was (understandably) abandoned.

But now, Brand New Day finally brings the idea to life all these years later.

If some of the fight scenes in Brand New Day looked familiar, you’ve probably played the Spider-Man video games on PS4 and PS5. Not surprisingly, that was by design. Director Destin Daniel Cretton says they absolutely studied the visuals and fight style of the games to inform the look of the big screen fights. Which makes sense — because the games do an incredible job of bringing Spidey to life.

“I surrounded myself with people who were obsessive gamers. So a lot of the people in our stunt department loved playing those video games,” Cretton told Polygon. “So they would do screen grabs of their play and bring it in and say like, ‘Can we pull this move off?’ So that was a great inspiration for things.”

I loved playing the games, and the influence was clear (and well done!).

Before Sony pulled the trigger on rebooting Raimi’s run of Spider-Man films with the Amazing Spider-Man, Raimi was already deep into planning on a fourth Spider-Man film that would’ve seen Tobey Maguire returning to the role. His reported plan for the film’s opening? A montage not unlike the one we saw in Brand New Day, featuring a parade of minor villains fighting Spider-Man.

The rogues roster was a bit different, though. Where Brand New Day featured character like Tombstone and Scorpion, Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 would’ve reportedly saw Maguire’s Spidey fighting villains like the Prowler and Mysterio (rumored to be played by cameo buddy Bruce Campbell).

This is more of a comic easter egg, and one we knew was coming from the trailers, but it was still cool to see on the big screen in the MCU. Bruce Banner is teaching at Empire State University, and it’s where Peter finds him for advice.

Of course, comic fans know that Peter attended the fictional Empire State University, and the college serves as a key location where Spidey meets iconic characters like Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn. Will Peter attend ESU in the MCU? Who knows.

But it’s nice to know the college is out there. And hey? Maybe a few movies down the line Peter will be teaching there, like he did for a stint in the comics.