Although Spider-Man: Brand New Day features a small handful of classic villains ripped right from the pages of the comics, the main antagonist isn’t one of the web-slinger’s major foes. Instead, Spidey faces off against Sadie Sink’s character, but that wasn’t always the plan. Originally, Spider-Man: Brand New Day was going to include Dmitri Smerdyakov, aka Chameleon, as the main villain.
Chameleon Was Once Spider-Man: Brand New Day Villain
Spider-Man: Brand New Day writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers spoke with Jeff Goldsmith about Chameleon being the original villain and why they ultimately went another direction.
“We came up with metamorphosis, and everyone was very excited about that idea. Then, we were trying to come up with a villain. That is very important. We had mind control, but we hadn’t settled on what villain that would be,” Chris said. “We loved the idea. In the early days, we were talking about Die Hard with a Vengeance. Like, ‘Can we just do a Spider-Man story that was set in ground-level New York, where you had a mysterious bomber?’ A villain who was basically toying with Spider-Man.“
He continued, “Erik and I were trying to think of a villain that would fit that bill, and we were thinking, ‘God, what’s a Spider-Man classic villain no one has really done yet in the films?’ Well, Chameleon, but how do you do that? They’ve done Skrulls; they’re not going to do masks. How do we do that? And then we hit upon the idea of mind control, and what if Chameleon was using mind control? But then they had already used Dmitri in Kraven, so it was like, ‘Agh, you can’t do Chameleon.’“
Sony’s Marvel Universe, always ruining things. Fred Hechinger played Chameleon in Kraven the Hunter, and he was obviously being set up for future appearances, but the film (and the universe) tanked with no plans for sequels.
Spider-Man: Brand New is Huge
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been an enormous success, and that’s still putting it mildly. The film has already grossed over $2 billion worldwide.
Our own Chris Bumbray called Brand New Day a surprisingly mature Spider-Man movie that doesn’t try to compete with the spectacle of all three live-action Spider-Men teaming up in No Way Home.
“I had a good time with Brand New Day,” he wrote. “While it wasn’t the rollercoaster ride No Way Home was or as innovative as the animated Spider-Verse movies, I preferred it to the first two Holland-led Spider-Man movies. It’s surprisingly mature, with some strong characterization as the character evolves into a more adult-skewing hero.“
You can check out his review right here, and make sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well.
Would you rather have seen Chameleon as the main villain of Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
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