Tom Holland’s fourth standalone Spider-Man movie, Brand New Day, is shrouded in a web of secrecy, with online speculation rife around the villains and the character played by Strangers Things star Sadie Sink.

What is no mystery is Holland’s box office potential as a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

His three previous solo outings as the heroic webslinger have collectively netted more than $2.1 billion globally, and you can add billions more if you include the other three appearances Holland has made elsewhere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“I think the truth is that my passion and love for these movies has only grown with every time I’ve been lucky enough to don the suit,” Holland says.

“The fans are as much a part of this process as we are. You know, we make these movies for them, we listen to them.

“So, for me to get to be the lucky kid that stands on that stage and represent that passion is just a gift that I will never take for granted.”

However, making Brand New Day was far from straightforward, because the production was impacted by the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and the departure of director Jon Watts, who’d helmed the previous trilogy (Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home).

It also didn’t help the last of those introduced the MCU’s Multiverse concept to the franchise, complete with two earlier iterations of Spider-Man, reprised by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Fans frothed at the collab, but navigating a clear narrative path out of it was not easy.

Holland says the decision to tap Destin Daniel Cretton to direct “saved” the project.

“I think that we are so lucky to have Destin as the captain of our ship,” Holland admits.

“You know, he came into this process when the movie was going in 100 different directions, and really what we needed was someone to come in and focus us all on one idea.”

And that one idea was informed by the dramatic conclusion of No Way Home, in which the only way to save the world was to have Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) conjure a spell to make everyone forget they ever knew Peter Parker.

“Destin was able to . . . focus on this idea of what is life like for a young person who is alone,” Holland explains.

“And that is something that people deal with all across the world. It doesn’t sacrifice the action. It doesn’t sacrifice the scope and scale of the movie.”

Cretton proved he was adept at serious drama with the 2019 biographical film, Just Mercy, but directing the MCU’s Shang-Chi showed he knew his way around an action sequence, too.

“Shang-Chi was my first time doing a very big movie, and . . . a lot of the same action designers and stunt performers and choreographers that did Shang-Chi I carried over into this movie,” Cretton says over a Zoom call with PLAY.

With Shang-Chi, Cretton had the challenge of bringing a character to the big screen who was relatively unknown to a mainstream audience.

Spider-Man presents a very different challenge, with decades of TV and film appearances representing a ton of pop cultural baggage.

“I’d like to think of it not really as baggage and more as building blocks that I get to build off of,” Cretton says with a smile.

“What’s wonderful is you don’t have to start from zero. You start from a place that emotionally already has a lot of set-ups . . . so, our movie was really able to go even deeper.

Holland agrees.

“I think you really meet Peter Parker at the beginning of the darkest chapter of his life,” the British actor says of where we find his character in Brand New Day.

“Sometimes the bravest thing that you can do is ask for help, and he is actively ignoring that advice, and it is having a profound effect on his life as a human being.

“But, then, on the other side of that, as Spider-Man, he is thriving. We’re probably seeing the most truthful version of what Spider-Man means to New York City at the beginning of this movie.

“And the smashing of those two worlds is such a fun thing for us to play with.”

The movie opens with Peter wholly throwing himself into crime-fighting, because the alternative is watching girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best mate Ned (Jacob Batalon) from afar, as they live their lives oblivious to his existence.

It’s legitimately sad and coincides with the arrival of a dangerous new threat, as well as the first appearance in the franchise of The Punisher, who is a frenemy to Spider-Man, played by Holland’s real-life pal, Jon Bernthal.

As Peter disappears further into his superhero alter-ego, he experiences a physical transformation and the film asks the audience to ponder a twist on the franchise’s iconic line: should great power come with great responsibility — for self-care?

“You hit the theme right on the head,” Cretton says.

“In a lot of ways, in the writers’ room, we were calling him Spider-Monk. He has kind of given up everything else and is just being Spider-Man.

“And, over the course of this movie, he learns what Aunt May actually meant when she said, ‘With great power must also come great responsibility’, because she didn’t want him to give up his humanity, and his responsibility is as much to Peter Parker as it is to Spider-Man.”

Blurring the line between personal and professional is an apt theme for a Spider-Man movie where the lead actor stars alongside his wife, Zendaya.

“Tom and Zendaya are extraordinary,” Cretton says of working with the super couple.

“They truly are a team. They really support each other. They allow space for each other. They’re incredibly professional on set. They’re both also very warm. They know everybody’s names on set. They come to work and they work very, very hard.

“They are also both very passionate about their characters and this movie and the fans. And they have done some scenes in this movie that will surprise you with how light and fun these scenes are, and also surprise you with how really deep they go.

“There are some scenes that I think will really blow you away.”

The director hopes the action sequences will blow audiences away as well, and studied YouTube videos of wingsuit and parkour experts to ensure Brand New Day captured the same sense of adrenaline.

And, of course, there is a galaxy of stars rounding out the cast, from Mark Ruffalo’s return as the Hulk, to Florence Pugh reprising her role of new Avenger, Yelena Belova.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in cinemas July 30