Tom Holland Credits Charlie Wood’s Rebuilt New York for Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s Creative Freedom
Tom Holland has revealed how Charlie Wood recreated New York for Spider-Man: Brand New Day — a move that gave the team total creative freedom on set.
Instead of chasing permits in Manhattan, the fourth Tom Holland Spider- Man movie built its own Big Apple overseas. Holland said most of Spider-Man: Brand New Day was shot in London, where production designer Charlie Wood oversaw a sprawling New York City set on Pinewood Studios’ backlot — a controlled playground big enough for street corners, storefronts and whole blocks to unfold without waiting on real traffic.
The choice wasn’t just about comfort. It meant director Destin Daniel Cretton could lock in camera moves, stunts and visual effects without the unpredictability of filming on location. As Holland put it on The Dish podcast, the team “essentially built New York on the back lot of Pinewood,” calling it a “humongous set” that gave them “so much freedom to sort of explore life in New York.”
“We had Charlie Wood as our production designer. One of the best in the business.”
Holland also pointed to the eternal headache of shooting in the real city: “when you shoot in New York, for whatever reason, you cannot shut down streets.” Earlier Spider-Man films — from Sam Raimi and Marc Webb’s eras to parts of Holland’s first trilogy — mixed real New York locations with stage work. This time the dial swings hard toward a meticulously built city, trading spontaneity for total control of lighting, action and seamless CG.
Record preview haul
That behind-the-scenes swing didn’t slow fan interest. The film banked $72 million from preview screenings, including Wednesday early-access shows — an all-time record for preview grosses that tops Avengers: Endgame ’s $60 million benchmark.
Domestic opening-weekend forecasts are running in the $260–$280 million range, with some projections eyeing a push past $300 million. Overseas expectations are similarly bullish as the story picks up Peter Parker’s post–No Way Home solitude and brings in Sadie Sink as the mysterious new villain Jean Grey.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters nationwide.