Spider-Man: Brand New Day star Tom Holland introduced Jon Bernthal to The Punisher years before their MCU team-up

The promotional campaign for Spider-Man: Brand New Day is slowly ramping up as the MCU project (produced by Sony) is a month and a half away from its release. What makes this Tom Holland Spider-Man movie so special is that it will also heavily feature The Punisher, played by none other than Jon Bernthal himself.

Last week, Kevin Feige, Holland, Bernthal, and others were interviewed by Empire to promote the upcoming MCU movie. The cast and crew discussed Spider-Man: Brand New Day in detail. However, the most interesting tidbit of the interview was when Bernthal spoke about his friendship with Tom Holland. There, the actor also revealed his past with The Punisher comics.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day: What did Jon Bernthal say?

Frank Castle in the movie | Image Via: YouTube/Spider-Man

Jon Bernthal made his debut in the MCU as The Punisher in 2016, when Daredevil Season 2 dropped on Netflix, after he got cast in the role a year ago. After that, he went on to headline a solo series for the character for two seasons on the same platform, until the entire franchise's cancellation in 2019 on Netflix. But that changed last year with Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 as Frank Castle appeared in the fourth episode, "Sic Semper Systema".

Now, a decade after his debut, Bernthal's Frank Castle is the second character from the Netflix/Disney+ MCU to crossover into the big screen, as it seems that he is one of Spider-Man: Brand New Day's key characters. However, Bernthal admitted to something that not many expected: He didn't know much about the character until Tom Holland introduced him to the comics a decade ago:

“I really wasn’t familiar with the Punisher. I wasn’t a huge comic-book guy. Tom was really the one that said, ‘Man, this character’s so great,’ and he explained it to me.”

Then, he added:

“We’ve remained friends over the years, but what a beautiful opportunity to do two movies back to back with him with The Odyssey and Spider-Man. I love him. I’m so proud of him.”

In the same interview, Holland also expressed something interesting.

Tom Holland would like to push the wall-crawler where he has never gone before on the big screen:

Bernthal's Spider-Man: Brand New Day co-star also revealed that he would like to be the first live-action Spider-Man actor to push the envelope for the character by making him more R-rated by appearing in a solo Punisher project (if it ever were to happen). However, that's highly unlikely because the Sony-Marvel deal doesn't allow Marvel to use Spider-Man for a long-form live-action Spider-Man show.

However, that did not stop Tom Holland from pushing the envelope for his version of the character in the same Empire interview. The British actor said:

“I would love to pop up in one of [Punisher’s] shows. Let’s see what an R-rated version of Spider-Man looks like. I’m so grateful for Jon for taking the leap and being a part of the film, and I would love to repay the favour.”

However, Holland might not be getting his wish as Spider-Man: Brand New Day might see his character at his lowest as Peter Parker is all alone. Kevin Feige hyped up the movie, saying that it was the first MCU Wall-Crawler that uses classic elements from the comics:

“It is the first Spider-Man film that we’ve made in the MCU that is focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man. He’s doing the Spidey thing of living in a rather sad, small apartment, listening to the police scanner and going out and using his great power responsibly.”

Brand New Day would not be the first time we would be seeing Peter Parker do the things Feige described in the quote above for the Empire interview. We saw Tobey Maguire's Parker do the same in Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, both of which are at least twenty years old.