Spider-Man's Cast List + Sympathetic Predators

Thursday morning started with me confidently walking into my kitchen and forgetting why I was there. Stood there for five minutes like an NPC waiting for someone to give me a quest. Finally remembered: coffee. It's the only quest that matters. Everything else is a side mission. Including my actual job. That's DLC content. Optional. At least in my mind.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Florence Pugh is supposedly joining Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Yelena Belova.

Yelena. In Spider-Man. Two characters who have never met, never interacted, have zero connection. Marvel's really playing superhero Mad Libs. "We need a CHARACTER in our SPIDER-MAN movie!" spins wheel "RUSSIAN ASSASSIN!"

Let's count who's already in this thing: Scorpion, Punisher, Hulk, probably Kingpin, maybe Venom, Tombstone, Hammerhead, now Yelena. That's eight-ish characters plus MJ plus whoever else they announce tomorrow. At this point Spider-Man's going to have like twelve minutes of screen time in his own movie. Just swinging between other people's scenes like "excuse me, sorry, coming through, this is technically my film."

She's filming back-to-back with Dune: Part III alongside Zendaya which means these two are about to be so sick of each other.

July 31, 2026 release and director Destin Daniel Cretton promises "a ride we haven't really seen before" which is director-speak for "we have no idea what we're doing but Florence Pugh said yes so we're going with it."

Dan Trachtenberg made the Predator the hero of Predator: Badlands. His name is Dek. Like Derek but they ran out of letters. He's described as "the runt of the litter" which means we're getting underdog Predator. Small Predator. Probably-gets-bullied-by-other-Predators Predator.

Elle Fanning plays a Weyland-Yutani synth who teams up with him because sure, why not, nothing matters anymore. November 7, 2025 in IMAX so you can see every mandible twitch as Dek experiences character growth.

Trachtenberg says it's inspired by Shadow of the Colossus which is a video game about climbing giant monsters to stab them, so naturally that translates to "what if Predator but sad?"

Someone at Fox—sorry, Disney now—said "what if we made people sympathize with the thing that skins humans for sport?" And everyone just... agreed.

I can't wait to cry about a Predator's childhood trauma. That's where we're at in 2025.

Universal announced vid Deadline that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are producing an Archie Comics movie.

The comic where nothing happens except love triangles and milkshakes. Tom King is writing it (he does Supergirl and Lanterns for HBO) which means it'll probably be good but also deeply weird. Like finding out your accountant writes erotic poetry. Technically impressive but you don't know how to process it.

This is being called an "event movie for all audiences" which is studio-speak for "we have no idea who wants this." Remember Riverdale? Seven seasons of Archie doing murders and cult stuff? This won't be that. This will be... something else. Nobody knows what.

Emma Watts is producing too. She used to run 20th Century Studios. Now she's making Archie movies. That's like going from Formula 1 to bumper cars. But the bumper cars have a $200 million budget somehow.

Disney+ confirmed Season 2 of their Spider-Man cartoon is in production and will be "more grand, more tragic, more funny."

More tragic. A Spider-Man story. Being MORE tragic. That's like making water wetter. Voice actor Aleks Le promises it'll push things further which—hold up. Season 1 already had teenage Peter getting beaten to a bloody pulp by Scorpion. Like, actually almost dying. What's further than that? Double dying? Triple trauma? Are they going to make him watch Uncle Ben die again but in 4K this time? Classic Spider-Man.

Spider-Gwen shows up because every Spider-thing needs Spider-Gwen now. It's contractual.

Returns 2026 or 2027 they're not sure which, because animation takes forever.