Spider-Man: Brand New Day needed almost 2,000 effects shots in 24 weeks
Nearly 2,000 visual effects shots were built for Spider-Man: Brand New Day in just 24 weeks of post-production, the phase after filming when editing, sound and digital work are finished. Overall visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen laid out the numbers at the VIEW Conference in Turin, as reported by Variety on 15 October 2026.
The pace was fierce. About three-quarters of the effects work was delivered in the final six weeks. That rush included 445 finished shots in a single week.
Chen put that sprint in perspective. His first film as a supervisor, in 1999, contained 450 shots in total and took two years to complete. Brand New Day needed almost that many shots every few days at its peak.
Work began long before cameras rolled. Chen joined a scouting trip to New York in December 2024, before he had received a finished script. Director Destin Daniel Cretton wanted a more grounded, street-level Spider-Man, with action rooted in real streets rather than cosmic battles.
Most filming still took place far from New York. Pinewood Studios, locations across London and streets in Glasgow doubled for New York City. It is a common industry practice, with British cities often standing in for American ones because of studio space and controlled filming zones.
One small sequence grew large. An introduction involving Spider-Man and a tank expanded into 11 shots and roughly 52 seconds of footage. Short on screen. Long in the workshop.
Capturing star Tom Holland inside the mask took invention. The team used a compact camera rig mounted on a helmet to record his performance up close. Artists then added a blurry red shape in compositing, the layering of separate images into one frame, to suggest the inside of the mask around his face.
The film also brings back Mark Ruffalo as Hulk in a more savage, telepathically controlled state. Chen said he consulted Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige about how Hulk's appearance had evolved across earlier films in the franchise.
The new Hulk is leaner and older in feel. The effects team lengthened his arms, reduced body fat and gave him greyer hair. A change in eye colour carries meaning too, with a shift from green to brown signalling a moment when Hulk regains part of his humanity.
Size had to feel real on set. Full-scale, 10-foot Hulk stand-ins were placed in scenes so actors could look in the right direction and camera crews could frame his height correctly. The digital character was added later, matching those dimensions.
Brand New Day also builds toward a climactic energy wave involving Jean Grey, a powerful mutant character long associated with the X-Men side of Marvel storytelling.
What makes this stand out is the contrast. A call for a street-level Spider-Man still required almost 2,000 digital shots. Grounded did not mean simple.
Chen, listed by the conference as Overall VFX Supervisor for Spider-Man: Brand New Day at Marvel Studios, spoke during VIEW Conference 2026, which its organisers list as running in Turin from 12 to 16 October 2026.
