Spider-Man: Brand New Day Almost Featured a Bizarre, Sticky Marvel Supervillain

Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton has revealed a sticky Marvel supervillain who was originally set to feature in the movie.

Cretton planned for Marvel's classic glue-shooting baddie Paste-Pot Pete to appear as part of the movie's introductory montage. It's here we see Spidey fighting villains such as Scorpion, Boomerang and Tombstone — and it's clear that more enemies were once planned.

One of these enemies would have been Peter Petruski, better known as Paste-Pot Pete, who first debuted in Marvel comics back in 1962. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character has tangled with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four over the years, and briefly been a part of teams such as the Frightful Four and the Sinister Six.

Here is Paste-Pot Pete:

How are we getting things like Aquaman 2 and El Muerto before we get what fans really want? Paste Pot Pete: The Movie. pic.twitter.com/gD4cZixsVL

— Comic Tropes (@CTropes) April 27, 2022

In terms of his abilities, Pete shares some similarity to Tom Holland's Spider-Man by firing a sticky adhesive (initially from a glue gun, but later from wrist-mounted devices), allowing him to shoot ropes and webs, and walk on walls. It remains to be seen how well he would have matched up to Holland himself — particularly as the latter's organic web skills develop.

Details

"We played around with a lot of villains who didn't make it into the final cut in the end," Cretton told OutNow. "We looked at the different [comic book] covers and considered which ones could help us tell our story.

"We wanted to show how Spider-Man cleans up the city, meaning beating up enemies. But on many covers, Spider-Man is currently getting a beating himself - so for the most part, we couldn't use those. Many classic Spidey pose covers were also unusable for us. One character we had a lot of fun with and wanted to include in the film was Pace Pop Pete - but he didn't quite make it in."

Still, perhaps there's hope for Paste-Pot Pete in Spider-Man 5? While Tom Holland's return has not been formally announced by Marvel, his future seems secure following Brand New Day's record-breaking opening weekend in theaters that brought in an astonishing $927 million worldwide.

"Spider-Man: Brand New Day sees Destin Daniel Cretton effectively refocus on the sturdiest pillars of the webslinger's iconography: struggling to find balance while swinging around New York City saving the day, and looking dang cool doing it," we wrote in IGN's Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, which returned a 7/10 score. Maybe with Paste-Pot Pete, it could have better stuck the landing?

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social