Spider-Man: Brand New Day director says Insomniac's games were a major influence on the film

Destin Daniel Cretton, director of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, has opened up about how Insomniac's Spider-Man games shaped his approach to the movie. Speaking to Polygon, he described the games as "a great inspiration" and said he deliberately surrounded himself with people who were, in his words, "obsessive gamers" during production.

Cretton didn't just play the games casually — he leaned on them as a reference point for how Spider-Man moves, feels, and exists in a modern setting. The Insomniac titles, particularly their fluid web-swinging and grounded-yet-spectacular take on Peter Parker's world, clearly left a mark on how he wanted the film to look and feel. He hasn't spelled out every specific beat he borrowed, but the influence runs deep enough that he made it a point to staff up with people who knew the games inside out.

Cretton broke into the MCU with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which was a genuine blockbuster hit, and Brand New Day marks his return to Marvel after a period of stepping back from the studio. Insomniac's Spider-Man series — spanning Marvel's Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation — has become one of the most beloved superhero game franchises around, so it's not surprising that a filmmaker tackling the character on screen would treat those games as homework. They've set a high bar for what a modern Spider-Man story can look and feel like.

The admission is a small but telling detail about how video game adaptations and superhero cinema are increasingly feeding off each other creatively. Fans of the Insomniac games will likely be watching Brand New Day closely to spot the fingerprints.