- A new Marvel leak has reportedly revealed which villains will appear in Spider-Man 4
- Three members of the webhead's rogues gallery could appear in the MCU film
- It's unclear if there's any truth to this particular Marvel Phase 6 movie rumor
Here we go again. Just days after numerous X-Men movie reboot casting rumors appeared online, speculation concerning which villains will appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day has begun circulating the *ahem* web.
The superhero film, which is slated to be released in July 2026, is expected to start shooting sometime in August. It's not entirely unexpected, then, that rumors about which members of the webhead's rogues gallery will show up in the co-developed Marvel and Sony Pictures flick.
However, what is surprising is the source that's leaked which villains will appear in the Marvel Phase 6 movie. Yes, there will reportedly be multiple bad guys for Tom Holland's Peter Parker to face off against.
Before I dive into said leak, though, it's worth bearing a couple of things in mind.
One, take these rumors with a huge pinch of salt – until Marvel and/or Sony say otherwise, or a world-famous trade publication with solid contacts within the industry, such as Deadline or The Hollywood Reporter, suggests this is true, it's best to treat this as conjecture. The other thing? Potentially big spoilers immediately follow for Spider-Man's next big-screen adventure, so proceed with extreme caution.
Alright, let's get down to business. Earlier today (May 20), Instagram user trusthigashi took to the social media platform to reveal they'd attended the 2025 edition of Disney's Consumer Products event. This year's presentation took place in Las Vegas, and included the announcement of a deal between Disney and F1, as well as the casting of Conan O'Brien as a new character called Smarty Pants in Toy Story 5.
But back to Brand New Day. As part of said presentation, trusthigashi claims that Disney confirmed three villains would appear in Spider-Man 4. Scorpion, whose Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut was teased in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming – aka the 15th entry on our best Marvel movies list – is among that trio. Joining Mack Gargan on villain duties, according to trusthigashi, are Lonnie Lincoln/Tombstone and Frederick Meyers/Boomerang.
Interestingly enough, Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Invincible), who was originally hired to play Sentry in Marvel's Thunderbolts* movie before scheduling conflicts forced him to drop out, was linked (per industry insider MyTimeToShineHello, whose track record is best described as mixed), with playing a villain in Spider-Man 4 on May 19.
However, while some observers assumed he'd been chosen to portray Martin Li/Mister Negative in the comic-book flick, others Marvel fans took to Reddit to point out that hiring a Korean actor in Yeun to play a Chinese character would be a controversial move on Marvel and Sony's part. So, many suspect that if Yeun is in talks to appear in Brand New Day, it won't be as one of the wallcrawler's most recently created villains.
So, what are the odds that trusthigashi's leak has more than an air of legitimacy to it?
That's hard to say. On the one hand, the image caption section of their Instagram post contains proof that they were present at Disney's Consumer Products 2025 presentation. It would be very surprising, then, if they fabricated the stuff about Brand New Day's villains.
However, it would also be odd for Disney to reveal which of the webslinger's most notorious antagonists would appear in Spider-Man 4. Sony owns the live-action rights to the character so, unless Disney got the green light from its fellow studio to drop this information at the event, I doubt Sony would be happy to learn that a rival revealed this key storytelling detail before it could.
That said, Marvel (and, by proxy, Disney) owns the rights to Spider-Man's merchandising deals. Given that this presentation took place during a three-day event dedicated to consumer products – of which merchandising is one such arm – Disney appears to have the right to discuss all things Spider-Man as it sees fit.
Regardless of whether you believe trushigashi's leak, with principal photography set to start on Brand New Day soon it won't be long until we get official confirmation on who'll actually appear in one of 2026's most anticipated new movies. That includes the apparent role that Sadie Sink has in Spider-Man 4, with the Stranger Things star supposedly tapped to co-star alongside Holland and Zendaya, who's also expected to return as MJ.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is currently set to arrive in theaters on July 31, 2026.
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