Norah O’Donnell, a familiar face to CBS News viewers, will also take up more duties with the program, according to Nick Bilton, the series’ new executive producer, who offered details in a memo to staffers.
Douthat, Junger, Phillips and Toboni are “entrepreneurial journalists who understand how to reach modern audiences,” Bilton said. “Between them, they have written books and magazine articles, produced documentaries, TV shows and podcasts, hosted live events and built brands on independent platforms.”
Variety‘s annual Showrunners Breakfast will return on August 14, featuring two spotlight conversations with a curated group of this year’s Emmy-nominated showrunners, plus the Norman Lear Creative Conscious Award presentation to Ryan Murphy.
Murphy will receive the award in recognition of a body of work that embodies Lear’s enduring legacy of creativity, visionary storytelling and social impact. Previous recipients include Chuck Lorre and David E. Kelley. Lear himself was the first honoree in 2019, when he received the predecessor prize, the Variety Creative Conscience Award, making it fitting for Variety to rename the award in his honor.
“Norman Lear’s legacy will forever live on via his landmark body of work, as well as through the generations of writers and showrunners whom he inspired,” said Variety Features Director Emily Longeretta. “Much like Lear, Ryan Murphy has never shied away from tackling social issues in his powerful storytelling and has been breaking barriers on television for more than 20 years. A driving force across multiple genres, we are so thrilled to present Ryan Murphy with the Norman Lear Award.”
The two spotlight conversations and participants will be announced shortly. The event’s guest list will consist of an exclusive group of showrunners recognized on Variety’s coinciding 2026 Showrunners Impact List.
“The Variety Showrunners Breakfast is a celebration of television storytelling among peers whose vision continues to define the medium and create culture,” said Donna Pennestri, Associate Publisher, Variety.
What does a serial killer’s mid-life crisis look like? We’re about to find out.
Paramount+ has dropped the first look (below) at season two of Dexter: Resurrection, which will premiere later this year (with a specific date to be announced later), and when Michael C. Hall returns as everyone’s favorite serial killer, season two will find his titular Dexter Morgan “caught between two killers — one notorious and the other terrorizing New York in ways no one ever anticipated — all while battling his greatest enemy yet: a mid-life crisis,” per the logline.
Son Harrison (Jack Alcott), meanwhile, “continues his own pursuit of justice as father and son face their darkest chapter.”
The returning cast also includes Uma Thurman, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Kadia Saraf, Dominic Fumusa, Desmond Harrington and James Remar.
Stevens, Cox, Bokeem Woodbine and Nona Parker Johnson join the cast for season two in series regular roles. Krysten Ritter returns in a guest starring role, with Gabriel Luna joining in a guest starring role this season as the Sleepy-Eyed Stranger.
James Remar as Harry Morgan with Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan in season two.
Matt Infante/Paramount+.
Uma Thurman as Charley with Hall as Dexter.
Matt Infante/Paramount+.
Hall as Dexter in season two.
Matt Infante/Paramount+.
Jack Alcott as Harrison Morgan.
Matt Infante/Paramount+.
Dominic Fumusa as Detective Melvin Oliva, Kadia Saraf as Detective Claudette Wallace and Bokeem Woodbine as Captain Mixon.
Desmond Harrington as Quinn.
Matt Infante/Paramount+.
Clyde Phillips is showrunner and executive producer of the Dexter sequel series, which brought Dexter back to life after the events of the 2021 limited series Dexter: New Blood. Prequel series Deter: Original Sin was un-renewed after one season.
Season one of Resurrection ended with Dexter discovering a file on the New York Ripper in the vault of Leon Prater (Peter Dinklage), a serial killer enthusiast and his season one primary adversary.
The first season of Resurrection filmed across Westchester County, Long Island and all five boroughs of the city, but moves to Manhattan full-time as Sunset Pier 94 Studios’ first major tenant.
The Paramount Television Studios and Counterpart Studios series is also executive produced by Hall, Scott Reynolds, Marcos Siega, Tony Hernandez, Lilly Burns, John Goldwyn, Sara Colleton, Veronica West, Kirsa Rein, Tanner Bean and Katrina Mathewson.
You can binge all of Dexter: Resurrection season one on Paramount+ and catch franchise stars like Erik King, Julie Benz, Ritter and Eric Stonestreet revisiting the larger Dexter universe with season three of Dexter’s Kill Room, Thursdays on YouTube.
Kent Broadhurst, the character actor who appeared in films including The Verdict, Silkwood and Silver Bullet and wrote the screenplay that led to Laura Linney’s first Emmy Award, has died. He was 86.
Broadhurst died May 20 at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, according to a paid obituary. He lived for the past 63 years in a building on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village.
The St. Louis native did lots of theater work during his lengthy career, making it to Broadway in revivals of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial in 1983 and A Doll’s House in 1997, and he wrote many plays as well.
Broadhurst might be best known for playing the anguished father of the murdered best friend of Corey Haim’s Marty Coslaw in the Stephen King-scripted horror film Silver Bullet (1985).
In an interview for the DVD, he said he arrived at a park at about 2 a.m. for the scene in which his character is taken to his dead son. “The prop department had presented [director Dan Attias] with the corpse of the boy that was just embarrassing, it was unusable,” he recalled. “It looked like a window mannequin that had been smashed with a hammer and smeared with cranberry juice.
“I could see [Attias] was in such a quandary, so I said, ‘I think I can give you what you need and you won’t have to show anything of the terrible thing I’m confronted with.’ He was so grateful, he said, ‘Oh, that’s great. I’ll just keep the camera on you.’”
Broadhurst penned the screenplay for the 2001 Showtime telefilm Wild Iris, directed by Daniel Petrie. Linney stars as a widow who lives with her son (Emile Hirsch) and mother (Gena Rowlands) in a home that doubles as a bridal shop.
Linney received the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or a movie — it was the first of her nine Emmy career nominations and first of her four wins — while Rowlands was nominated as well.
Born in St. Louis on Feb. 4, 1940, James Kent Broadhurst graduated from the University of Nebraska and headed to New York, where he appeared off-Broadway opposite Marcia Wallace in The Fourth Wall in 1968, among many other plays.
He made his big-screen debut in Stuart Rosenberg’s Brubaker (1980), starring Robert Redford, then followed with turns in Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict (1982), starring Paul Newman, and Mike Nichols’ Silkwood (1983), starring Meryl Streep.
In the 1983 NBC miniseries Kennedy, starring Martin Sheen, Broadhurst portrayed Richard Paul Pavlick, the postal worker who was arrested after he stalked president-elect John F. Kennedy with the aim of assassinating him.
After appearing in Silver Bullet, which was based on King’s 1983 novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, he worked on another horror film taken from a novel written by King, The Dark Half (1993), directed by George A. Romero.
His résumé also included such films as Marshall Brickman’s Lovesick (1983), John Turturro’s Mac (1992), Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994), A Couch in New York (1996) and Boys Life 2 (1997) and TV guest spots on The Equalizer, Spenser: For Hire, Reasonable Doubts, Walker, Texas Ranger, Babylon 5, Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU.
In 2000, Broadhurst stepped in to provide the onstage narration as a hypnotherapist for a Dream Theater concert in New York that was recorded for the video album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory.
His plays included They’re Coming to Make It Brighter, Lemons, The Eye of the Beholder and The Habitual Acceptance of the Near Enough; some bowed at the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Broadhurst also was a painter who created more than 2,000 canvases, some of which have been exhibited at the Broadhurst Art Gallery (named for him) at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, New York.
“Friends and colleagues often described him as a Renaissance man — thoughtful, intellectually generous and devoted to the arts in all their forms,” his paid obituary notes.
Jennifer Aniston is set to star in Olivia Wilde’s Universal comedy “Naughty,” playing a single mom named Mallory — whose “trash-bag ex” is Santa Claus.
Peter Dinklage takes on the role as the king of Christmas.
Wilde — fresh off the success of her latest directorial effort “The Invite” — directs “Naughty,” which centers on Mallory, whose “only hope of securing custody of her son from her gaslighting trash-bag ex is to find Santa Claus and convince him to testify in her divorce hearing.”
Jimmy Warden (“Cocaine Bear,” “Borderline”) wrote the screenplay and original spec script. LuckyChap (the company led by Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Milan Popelka), Wilde and Warden will produce.
The project was first announced in 2023 and described as “Bridesmaids” set at the North Pole. Universal has dated the movie for theatrical release on Nov. 5, 2027.
Executive VP of production development Sara Scott and director of production development Jacqueline Garell will oversee the project on behalf of the studio.
The casting update comes as Emmy and Golden Globe winner Aniston wraps up her tenure as executive producer and star of “The Morning Show” with its forthcoming fifth and final season on Apple TV. (Aniston also won SAG-AFTRA’s Actors Award for her performance as news anchor Alex Levy.) Meanwhile, Dinklage — who won a record four Emmys for “Game of Thrones” — recently booked a key role on FX’s “Alien: Earth” for its upcoming season.
Aniston, Dinklage, Wilde, Warden and LuckyChap are represented by CAA.
Aniston is also repped by Lighthouse Management & Media, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, and Dinklage by Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Wilde is also repped by Untitled Entertainment, Narrative and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole; Warden by Untitled Entertainment, Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis and Ziffren Brittenham; and LuckyChap by Entertainment 360, Narrative and attorney Jeff Bernstein.
Kaitlyn Collins responded Monday to the string of insults President Trump lobbed at the CNN journalist during his first White House Correspondents‘ Association dinner speech, saying it was unsurprising, since hearing similar personal attacks has become normalized in the Oval Office.
From the podium at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., Trump repeatedly lobbed insults at Collins, mocked her appearance and told her to “just smile,” and fumbled a convoluted joke comparing her to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney (who brushed off the comparison to Collins on TikTok over the weekend as a great compliment). That the joke landed with a thud was the real point of fascination from where Collins sat Friday night, after she was given an award for her coverage of Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“In the room, I was not surprised when he insulted me. That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office. This is just a bigger venue where it was happening,” Collins told host Jon Stewart on Monday’s Daily Show. “What was most surprising to me was, the room was filled with a lot of his staffers, his Cabinet, his allies, Republicans in Congress — it was so quiet in the room during the president’s remarks.”
Stewart joked that the silence may have been out of respect for the president. He also pointed out how often Trump deflects Collins’ questions during White House briefings. She explained how that has shaped the way she asks them.
“That’s why I ask the questions the way I do — because I want anyone to be able to listen to what I’m asking, whether that’s at a briefing or during a moment with the president, and think, ‘I want to know the answer to that, too,’ or ‘That is a good question,’” Collins said. “I don’t want it to only serve one audience or one political leaning. I want anyone — from my family in Alabama, to people in the White House, to people in Washington — to be able to hear that question and think, ‘What is the answer to that?’”
Over the weekend, Trump carried the joke further, posting to Truth Social an AI-generated photo from a Budweiser ad placing Collins’ face on Mulvaney’s body.
Evan Rachel Wood isn’t among the “Practical Magic” cast members returning for the forthcoming sequel — and she’s opening up about her disappointment. Speaking to “Entertainment Tonight” at the red carpet premiere of her new series “The Shards,” Wood called it “sad” not to be asked back for “Practical Magic 2.”
“It is sad, because we bonded with that cast so much as children, and so to miss out on the opportunity to look at that cast and look at that house as an adult and see the history in our eyes, it’s something that can’t be faked,” the actor said. “I’m sad that doesn’t get to exist, especially for the fans.”
In the 1998 movie, Wood and Alexandra Artrip played Kylie and Antonia Owens, the daughters of Sandra Bullock’s witch character. In the sequel, Wood is replaced by “The Act” star Joey King, while Artrip’s younger-sister character is played by “Game of Thrones” standout Maisie Williams.
The sequel, out September 11, is adapted from “The Book of Magic” by Alice Hoffman, a sequel to her own novel “Practical Magic,” which inspired the first film.
“I read the book and it seems like they’re not following the book,” Wood said. “I think in the book it would have made sense to bring me back; I think in the way they’re redoing it and approaching it, it didn’t make sense.”
This isn’t the first time Wood has spoken out about the film; last year, she wrote on Instagram” “I offered my services, even if it was one scene or one line. I was told they are re-casting. I am sorry to disappoint the fans. It was not in my control or my choice. I would have happily rejoined my sisters.”
Returning cast members include leads Bullock and Nicole Kidman as sisters and fellow practitioners of magic, as well as Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as their loopy aunts. Wood, who was 11 when “Practical Magic” came out, counts the movie as one of her very first roles; among the leading child stars of her generation, she went on to appear in “Thirteen,” “The Upside of Anger” and the TV series “Once and Again” before making the transition to grown-up stardom on “True Blood” and “Westworld.” Literary adaptation “The Shards,” on which Wood plays a wealthy L.A. mom in the 1980s, debuts on FX August 5.
“I’m just fully ready to get it out there and see who’s mad at me,” Barone tells Variety over Zoom with a sly smile. For the comedian and actor — who got her start in the New York City club scene before breaking through with comedy podcasts “Obsessed” and “Ride” alongside collaborator and bestie Benito Skinner — this moment has been a long time coming.
Over the past two years, Barone had been workshopping material for a potential special while touring, and decided last summer to start putting feelers out to buyers. Then, things happened fast — a few weeks after an L.A. gig in August, Netflix called.
“I don’t feel excitement very much, but that was a moment where I was like, ‘Holy shit, this is actually happening,’” she says. “It’s such a career milestone for any comedian and I just felt like, ‘Woah, they said yes.’”
But that doesn’t mean that Netflix is safe from being the butt of Barone’s jokes. In the first 10 minutes of “Galaxy Brain” — filmed at New York City’s Skirball Center in March — she razzes the streamer for the rarity of women-led specials and riffs on their advice for winning over viewers. It sets the tone that Barone is willing to go there, and over the next hour, no topic is off limits as she tackles bad behavior from the men in her field, Ozempic, sex, politics and more.
“I’m sure some of [the jokes] will be a little bit shocking, but I think women and queer people get shit on enough,” Barone says. “And it’s time to shit on people back.”
Below, Barone tells Variety more about “Galaxy Brain” (out now on Netflix), making jokes she wouldn’t be able to say online and what’s in store for Season 2 of “Overcompensating,” the Prime Video comedy series she co-writes and stars in with Skinner.
Mary Beth Barone before the “Galaxy Brain” taping.
SIDEWALKKILLA
What was your process for workshopping material for the special, and how much did it change?
When I first started doing the hour, I would say it was probably 90% different material. Obviously, our lives are constantly changing and I always want the set to feel current but also sort of evergreen. So if there’s any topical references, just making sure that will be relevant whenever it comes out and as long as the special is available — I guess until we all drown from global warning when the sea levels rise. It’s a tough process because sometimes there’s jokes that you love that just weren’t playing as well. But I wanted to balance anything topical with things that happened a really long time ago, so the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, for example, or Jack the Ripper, things like that that are sort of timeless in their own way. I think one of the only super topical references was “Wicked,” and I thought about changing that out to be something that happened more recently — but then I just thought like, “Wicked” is forever.
You don’t hold back in “Galaxy Brain.” In the beginning of the special, you point out how rare it is for women to actually get Netflix specials and share advice they gave you for winning people over within three minutes. Why was it important for you to cheekily call that out?
They were really great about… they didn’t have me cut anything. They definitely gave me some best practices — that thing about getting people’s attention in the first three minutes was an actual conversation that we had. And I’m a good student, so of course I was going to try to do that. I used to have a joke in the beginning of the set that was poking fun at cities that aren’t New York, L.A. or Chicago, and they said, “You have three minutes to catch people’s attention, to win them over. You don’t want to alienate them right away.” So it was genuinely me on tour trying to figure out what to say in three minutes to make people want to keep watching, and working that into the set just felt really natural.
I think there’s a lot of edgy moments in the special. I want it to feel cheeky and also like, stand-up is such a specific performance piece that I can’t imagine going on stage and just launching in and not acknowledging the moment — that we’re all in a room together and I have a microphone and I’m going to try to make you laugh now.
Do you think the situation for women in comedy is improving at all?
The internet, of course, has done really, really good things for comedy and then some not so good things for comedy. But what’s great is it’s made comedy more democratic, because people can start with live performance and post online and then they create their own audience; the right people find them. And I think that’s translated into having more women and queer people who are stand-up comedians that can tour and support themselves financially. That’s been really fun to watch since I started comedy, when it was dominated by the club scene and if you couldn’t get in there and work your way up and be one of the boys, there was less opportunity. Now with all these indie venues — especially in New York and in so many other cities like Pittsburgh, Denver, Chicago — it’s been wonderful to be surrounded by more and more women and the LGBTQ+ community, because those are the people that I want to make laugh and those are the people that I want to be friends with.
You also don’t shy away from calling out male comedians.
They’re some of the worst people that we have!
You mention specific people, including Chris D’Elia, and later jokes mention J.K. Rowling, Woody Allen, Mark Zuckerberg and more. How did you decide who to call out specifically?
I wanted to strike a balance between cultural references and general experiences and moving through the world with my unique point of view, but there were just certain names that I felt like belonged in the canon of this special. What I try to do is write the joke about that person that no one else would or could write. So I do hope that’s where I landed with these ones, and I’m sure some of them will be a little bit shocking, but I think women and queer people get shit on enough and it’s time to shit on people back.
Mary Beth Barone in “Galaxy Brain.”
Courtesy Netflix
There are some jokes in the special that you say you wouldn’t be able to post online, including one about Ozempic that riffs on Kim Kardashian’s infamous “get your fucking ass up and work” quote — which she said to Variety, by the way. What’s the line for you when it comes to risky jokes and possibly offending people?
Here’s the thing about that — I understood what she meant and I think it started a conversation. And that, to me, is a successful interview.
With that joke specifically, part of what is so almost absurd about it is that it probably will end up online with a comments section, and that’s just part of putting out a special these days … But I think for me it’s like, of course I’m going to explore uncomfortable topics at times, but I don’t find joy or feel a sense of accomplishment punching down. I always want to feel like my jokes are punching up. And sometimes you find just by doing the jokes that they’re not always on the correct side of that line. But yeah, it’s difficult. I want to make the right people uncomfortable, and I want to offend the correct people. Sometimes it is trial and error.
Since the internet is forever, what’s your advice for comedians coming up now when it comes to navigating social media?
I’m sure there’s an instinct if you’re starting out to just post as many clips as possible and try to gain traction that way. But I would say that there’s no substitute for experience and stage time, and the more real-world experience you can get playing off of an audience — you need that foundation because you can’t really fake that.
And the comments section is always something you can look away from. I really struggle with that; I read comments. I’m trying to stop, and I’ve definitely created more boundaries for myself. There’s more and more people that I meet in the industry who don’t have internet access or they don’t use social media at all, they pay someone to post for them. It’s hard as a comedian, because I want my online presence to be an extension of me and feel very authentic, but I know people reach a limit where it’s just not healthy. I can, even now where I’m at, see how people completely lose themselves and their grip on reality … So I feel a lot of gratitude that things have happened really gradually for me. I’m 35 now, so I have so many friends from before, I have an amazing family, I have a lot of support and people that I can surround myself with that are not in the industry to ground me.
I do believe that the age you blow up at is the mental age you can be stuck at forever.
The other side of that too, which we see especially with comedians, is potentially a level of being out of touch where you have to fall back on just being offensive in order to feel like you’re saying something. So my pledge to the public is that if I ever reach a point where I can’t write about something that’s relatable, I just won’t do a stand-up special. I think when you have a totally frictionless life and you’re flying in a private jet everywhere and everyone around you is just saying yes to your every whim, that’s probably when you should just sit back and count your money and leave the public alone.
You’re wearing a stunning dress in the special. Who designed it and what inspired the look?
That is a dress by Jackson Wiederhoeft. We met with their team last year — pretty much as soon as we knew we were going to make the special, I knew that I wanted them to design the dress. And so the references that we gave were the dress in “The Little Mermaid” when she comes out of the water; so fabulous, so beautiful, burned in my brain as a kid. And then Megara from “Hercules” also sort of came in as a reference. I knew I wanted it to be lilac, and it was actually such a specific color that they had to custom dye the fabric and just completely blew me away with what they were able to create. And then on the corset, we had beading done in the shape of the Gemini constellation — because I’m a Gemini — so that felt like a fun tie-in to the sort of overall theme.
I also want to ask about “Overcompensating” Season 2 because I know you just wrapped filming. What can you tease about Grace’s arc this season?
It’s sadder but also funnier. What was cool about arriving to Season 2 was that the characters already felt really lived in, so Benny’s approach was like, what can we do that’s surprising but also fan service? I do think the direction it goes is going to surprise a lot of people, but I can say I have a really wonderful love interest this season and I am excited to see it on screen.
Ted Lasso is gonna have to book another transatlantic flight. Well, three to be precise. All good: AFC Richmond will probably take care of that.
On Tuesday, Apple TV released the trailer (below) for the 10-episode fourth season of its crown jewel Ted Lasso — this whole thing came so close to never happening. Ted Lasso season four premieres with just one episode on Wednesday, Aug. 5; the remaining nine episodes will roll out one at a time each Wednesday through Oct. 7. Apple has every reason to want to extend this thing — who knows how, when and even if we’ll get more.
After a few years back in the states, in season four, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) returns to Richmond, “taking on his biggest challenge yet: coaching a second division women’s football team,” the synopsis reads. “Throughout the course of the season, Ted and the team learn to leap before they look, taking chances they never thought they would.”
The familiar faces are pretty much all there — minus the men’s players, that is. Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt and Jeremy Swift all return for season four. Counted among the show’s newcomers are Tanya Reynolds, Jude Mack, Faye Marsay, Rex Hayes, Aisling Sharkey, Abbie Hern and Grant Feely.
Ted Lasso is executive produced by Sudeikis alongside Hunt, Joe Kelly, Jane Becker, Jamie Lee and Bill Wrubel. Jack Burditt joins their ranks this season under a new overall deal with Apple TV. Goldstein is writer and executive producer alongside Leann Bowen. Sarah Walker and Phoebe Walsh are writers and producers for season four; Sasha Garron co-produces. Julia Lindon will write for season four, and Dylan Marron will serve as story editor.
Bill Lawrence executive produces via his Doozer Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television and Universal Television. Doozer’s Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer also serve as executive producers. The series was developed by Sudeikis, Lawrence, Kelly and Hunt, and is based on the terrific, old NBC Sports commercials.
Ted Lasso won back-to-back best comedy Emmys for its first two seasons. Season three was a bit of a regression, and seemed to serve as the natural conclusion for the series. And then Sudeikis had an epiphany.
The 2021 blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Homeushered in a pile-up of villains from the superhero’s past, multiplying the title character by three to even out the odds and extend its embrace across the Marvel property’s modern screen era, dating back to 2002’s “Raimiverse” kick-off. Five years on, Spider-Man: Brand New Day reins all that in to find a more introspective Peter Parker in emotionally bruised isolation following his self-sacrificial decision to save the world by erasing its memory of him.
Directed with adrenaline and feeling if not always an ideal grasp of pacing by Destin Daniel Cretton and penned by returning screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, the entertaining new entry has the good sense to stop banging on about the damn multiverse. Instead, it foregrounds the humanity that has always been Spidey’s greatest strength — with an extra dash of angst. But fear not, that doesn’t mean the man in the red and blue webbed suit (don’t call it a leotard!) is stuck whining away on a psychoanalyst’s couch or poring over self-help manuals.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
The Bottom Line
Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man grows up.
Release date: Friday, July 31 Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Mark Ruffalo, Liza Colón-Zayas, Michael Mando, Marvin Jones III, Marisa Tomei Director: Destin Daniel Cretton Screenwriters: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko
Rated PG-13,
2 hours 25 minutes
Naturally, he still spends a lot of time fighting villains and thwarting crime, most notably a threat of almost unprecedented magnitude through which telepathic mind games enable the misunderstood fiend to hop from one host body to the next like a nimble trickster — with help from some cool, woozy freeze-frame effects. Anyone in New York City could be the menace, including those who set themselves up as peacekeepers.
Trailers have already given away the presence of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, now teaching college physics to students who mostly just want to hear about the not-so-jolly green giant. No surprise that where Bruce goes, Hulk follows. Ditto a terrific Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, who acts like he and Spider-Man are old frenemies though that will be somewhat confusing to those of us without a comprehensive knowledge of the comics.
But there are two more MCU crossovers — one from The Avengers and one from X-Men — that go beyond fan service to bring welcome touches, respectively, of mordant humor and unpredictable danger. Spoiler ettiquette forbids me from naming those characters or the actors playing them, even if they will probably be all over social media by the time this review runs. But if you want to try figuring it out, one quite hilariously treats a Russian bathhouse in Brooklyn as their HQ and the other was often described by Professor Xavier as his most talented student. IYKYK.
The dominant thread, however, at least until full-scale mayhem erupts, is Peter Parker’s identity crisis, which gives a never-better Tom Holland soulful new notes to play in his fourth solo turn in the tights. This is a heavily burdened Spider-Man, rendered more vulnerable by his sense of loss, mourning his beloved Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and pained by having to watch from afar as the love of his life, MJ (Zendaya), and his geeky best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) carry on with their lives with no memory of him.
Peter obsessively rehearses the reunion speech he has written for MJ — “We used to know each other. We were together.” — going on to explain that the only way to stop something terrible from happening was to make everyone forget. But rekindling the spark proves complicated, even as he slowly reintroduces himself into MJ and Ned’s lives, soon after they graduate from MIT and move back to NYC.
In his bleakest moments, Peter tries to reconcile his loneliness with his self-diagnosed new responsibility: “To live alone with the truth.” But his mental anguish is upsetting the balance of his cross-species DNA, first with paralyzing headaches and gradually with an internal battle as his arachnid side starts overpowering his human side. That also plays havoc with his control over his web-shooting capabilities, both the old-school organic method and the tech version built for him by Tony Stark.
While separated from his inner circle, Spider-Man has been busy reducing crime to a record low, earning much appreciation from Det. DeWolff (The Bear‘s Liza Colón-Zayas, nice to see you), with whom he maintains a bantering phone friendship. But he comes up against a greater challenge when he responds to a crime alert about a hijacked tank careening through the city, headed for the Damage Control Headquarters.
That high-speed, major-destruction chase is one of several supercharged set-pieces impressively executed by Cretton, DP Brett Pawlak and an ace stunt team. The tank’s arrival coincides with the transfer to maximum-security lockup of the mutant criminal known as Scorpion (Michael Mando), last seen wielding his armored tail in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Or is the Scorpion just a red herring, under the spell of a darker force?
That encounter gives Spider-Man a taste of the mind-control phenomenon that will be the action’s principal driver — described as something closer to “possession” by a savvy insider who makes teasing mention of the erotic gay fanfiction Spidey has inspired. (Maybe Sony should market that to broaden their audience?) While at Damage Control, Spidey meets the center’s director, Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman, coolly composed and authoritative), who reveals that they are studying captured villains and their weaponry, with the aim of repurposing that knowledge for law enforcement.
One of Metzger’s success stories is The Hand, a band of red-clad ninja badasses whose destructive energy supposedly has been redirected into more useful service. Don’t be so sure. This group allows Cretton to revisit similar territory to his enjoyable first MCU movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, with some spectacularly choreographed, gravity-defying wire-fu fight action.
All this chugs along satisfyingly even with the occasional patch of sluggishness and the usual overly convoluted plot contortions. As much as the movie revels in the thrill of Spidey swinging between skyscrapers with erratic command of his shooters, the more intimate scenes with MJ and Ned are what supplies the emotional charge.
The dynamic of these three together — and of Holland, Zendaya and Batalon in the roles — has been lovingly nurtured over four films and pays off here with genuinely affecting moments that will have some fans getting misty-eyed. Likewise, the spiky cameraderie between this more mature Spider-Man and rough-hewn vigilante Frank provides an extra dose of heart
The heat gets fully turned up when the identity of Sadie Sink’s character is revealed, at first driven by fury, contempt and manipulation mastery but eventually revealed to have much in common with Peter in terms of devastating loss. Without giving too much away about the role, the Stranger Things star’s compelling performance puts a new face on a familiar character and a painful new backstory to drive her actions, perhaps setting up future appearances.
In addition to the actors, Cretton’s biggest asset in balancing the tone between excitement and tenderness is Michael Giacchino’s excellent score, interspersing melancholy passages that echo the characters’ internal unrest with more rousing action accompaniment.
Whether this latest entry can match the series high of No Way Home’s $1.92 billion in global box office remains to be seen. But it should give fans what they want, which is a good start. And though Holland has not yet confirmed his intention to continue in the role, a cute post-credits tease involving an app invented by Ned gives credence to the closing text card: “Spider-Man will return.” Besides, Brand New Day hardly sounds like a farewell.
