Tom Holland and Zendaya are deep into a ten-city global press tour for Spider-Man: Brand New Day — and an interview clip from IGN Benelux has broken through the promotional noise for an unexpected reason. Asked whether Insomniac Games’ PlayStation Spider-Man series had any influence on the upcoming film, Holland pivoted from the industry question to an enthusiastic personal endorsement. “I love the games — we love the games,” he said. “The games are absolutely sensational.”
Zendaya followed with a more candid confession: she plays on Story Mode, the difficulty setting designed to minimize combat obstacles, because she finds the standard gameplay frustrating. The reason, though, has nothing to do with the game itself. “I get very frustrated because I want to play it all by myself, and he’ll try to come, ‘Let me help you!’ and I’m like ‘No! I need to do this on my own!'” she said, gesturing at Holland.
The standoff, she admitted, did not always hold. One particularly brutal boss fight in Spider-Man 2 — a symbiote-powered encounter that has tripped up countless players — eventually broke her resolve. “But ultimately, I think you needed to help me because that was a really hard level.”
Insomniac Games responded within hours on X, tagging both actors: “If you’re ever near Burbank, you’re always welcome to swing by the studio to see how we make ’em! We’d love to show you around!”
The exchange lands at an interesting moment for the Spider-Man brand across both mediums. Insomniac’s trilogy — spanning the 2018 original, Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2 — has sold tens of millions of copies and is widely credited with rehabilitating the character’s gaming legacy after years of licensed mediocrity.
The MCU film series has followed a parallel arc, with Holland’s three solo entries collectively grossing over $4 billion worldwide. Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, opens July 31 with a cast that adds Sadie Sink and Jon Bernthal’s Punisher to returning players Jacob Batalon and others.
The two franchises exist under the same Sony corporate umbrella, which partly explains the comfort Holland and Zendaya feel in discussing the games publicly. Insomniac’s Peter Parker even makes a cameo in the Spider-Verse animated films. Whether Brand New Day includes any deliberate nods to the games remains to be seen.
