Spider-Man: Brand New Day Director Opens Up About Tom Holland’s Injury, Said He Didn’t Think About Release Date Impact

Last fall, Marvel fans were worried to hear that Tom Holland had suffered an injury on the set of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The actor had reportedly suffered a mild concussion in a stunt-related incident, leading to taking a few days break from the film’s production. At the time, fans were concerned that the incident could lead to a delay in the highly anticipated film’s release. Now however, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day just over a month from opening in theaters, director Daniel Destin Cretton is opening up about the incident and reveals a release date delay never crossed his mind.

During an appearance on Deadline’s Crew Call podcast, Cretton explained that the priority when Holland was injured wasn’t a deadline or a delay. HIs focus was on Holland, and he explained that dates are the studio’s job; the actors and production are his.

“I mean, first of all, when someone gets hurt, I’m not thinking about his schedule,” Cretton said. “I was just like, I hope Tom’s okay. I mean, yeah, I’ve grown to love him. And anybody who gets hurt on my sit is just like a terrible, terrible moment. Did I think about the release date? Not really. It’s not really my job. That’s more Sony’s job. I just make sure that my actors are healthy and ready to keep moving. And we took a little break, and then we jumped back on the horse and kept going.”

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Stayed on Track Even With Holland’s Injury

With Spider-Man: Brand New Day still hitting theaters on July 31st, it’s clear that taking a little break and then getting right back to work is a strategy that worked out just fine for the MCU film, but what’s particularly noteworthy here is Cretton’s response. With a movie as huge and as wildly anticipated by fans as the next Spider-Man installment, it would be understandable if there had been some pressure around focusing on the potential release date delay an injury could have had. In fact, when the injury first made headlines, there was a lot of speculation as to whether the situation would lead to a setback—and that includes our own speculation about the situation. After all, on-set accidents can lead to larger issues and protocols because it could be a matter of larger safety issues.

But the flip side of that is that there are always additional elements of a film’s production that can continue even if an actor is briefly out of commission. Had Holland ben out longer than merely a few days, it’s likely Cretton and the overall production of Spider-Man: Brand New Day would have found a way to continue around the actor’s absence. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and everything continued on without issue. Ultimately, the only thing that caused even a minor delay in the film’s release schedule is Holland’s other big summer movie, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Spider-Man was originally set to release on July 24th but was pushed back just one more week to the 31st in order to space it two weeks after The Odyssey in order to accommodate IMAX screen availability.

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