Avengers: Doomsday: will Tom Holland's Spider-Man appear?

Peter Parker, Jean Grey and the Hulk all looked set to return in Avengers: Secret Wars after Spider-Man: Brand New Day. But new information was emerging that suggested Tom Holland's Spider-Man could return sooner, in Avengers: Doomsday, maybe as a cameo at the end of the film or in a post-credits scene that sets up Secret Wars.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), starring Tom Holland and Zendaya, ends with a post-credits scene that makes clear Spider-Man will return, but it doesn't say in which movie. When news first broke that Sadie Sink was in the film, it was said that her character would come back in Secret Wars. Holland had not been confirmed for either Doomsday or Secret Wars, but we were strongly hoping he would appear in at least one of them, or possibly both.

The Sony and Marvel Studios deal says Spider-Man belongs in Avengers films

The agreement between Sony and Disney's Marvel Studios to share Spider-Man and other MCU characters includes a condition: Tom Holland's Peter Parker has to appear in the MCU's Avengers team-up movies between his solo Spider-Man films. There was no Avengers movie between Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021 and Brand New Day in 2026. So I'm sure someone at Marvel Studios is telling Sony, or Tom Rothman, that they owe Marvel two movies featuring little Tommy.

Originally, Doomsday was planned to come out before Brand New Day. It was first announced in July 2024 with a release date of May 1, 2026. The following April, the fourth Spider-Man movie was announced at CinemaCon as Spider-Man: Brand New Day, dated for July 2026. Then in May 2025, Disney pushed Doomsday back six months to December 18, 2026, where it was still scheduled in August 2026.

Tom Holland knew about Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom early

Back in 2024, when we were all first thinking about the plans for Doomsday, Holland went on the Rich Roll podcast in October 2024 and revealed that he had known before July 2024 that Robert Downey Jr. was returning as Doctor Doom in the fifth Avengers movie. Holland said he had talked a lot with Downey about his return and admitted it was very hard to keep the secret, joking that he has a reputation for spoiling things and a loose mouth when it comes to MCU secrets.

No disrespect to Tom Holland, but if he wasn't coming back for Avengers: Doomsday, why would anyone tell him that? And at that point, the film's release date was still May 1, 2026.

In the months since, there was no chair for Holland at the March 2025 Doomsday cast announcement. But there were no chairs for Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell or Kathryn Newton either. After that came four teasers at the end of 2025 and a full trailer at CinemaCon in April 2026, which later went online in July 2026. I'm not sure how much room there is in Doomsday for Tom Holland's Spider-Man, but there's always room in a post-credits scene.

Ned's Spidey tracker in the Brand New Day post-credits scene

In the Brand New Day post-credits scene, Ned's Spidey tracker app detects the location of a new Spider-Man out in space. I've laid out theories that this could be Tom Holland's Peter being moved from Earth-616 to a newly formed Battleworld in space, or Tobey Maguire's Peter's universe being drawn close because of an incursion. Either way, I think it points toward Avengers: Doomsday.

I don't know why this post-credits scene would make us think about our Spider-Man's next appearance unless he's somehow connected to Avengers: Doomsday, rather than just his next solo movie. The scene feels like a way to bring people back to theaters in December 2026.

The post-credits scenes in Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four were shot by the Russo brothers themselves for Doomsday. With this one, though, Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton hinted that he knows what it means. In an exclusive interview with Drew Taylor of TheWrap, Taylor wrote that Cretton promised audiences would learn what the little signal at the end of the credits means. Cretton was quoted as saying, "I really get annoyed when these things are left open but you never get the answer," and Shang-Chi is one of those things. "It's still unresolved," Cretton said. "I have every intention of answering that question."

From that last line, it isn't clear whether Cretton means the question from the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings post-credits scene or the question raised by the Spidey tracker app in Brand New Day. Whichever it is, the fact that he wants to answer one of them satisfied me.

Tom Holland dodged the Doomsday question with BBC News

On August 1, BBC News asked Holland whether he would be in Avengers: Doomsday, and our boy has had his media training. Asked whether he would keep playing Spider-Man after this role, he answered, "You'll have to watch this film, maybe you'll get your answer there." Asked whether we would see him in Doomsday, he said, "Again, I can't answer that question."

The Russo brothers' box office post put a chess king in Spider-Man's hand

Still, some strange hints were showing up. When it was confirmed that Spider-Man: Brand New Day had set the record for the biggest domestic opening weekend of all time, beating Avengers: Endgame from 2019, the Russo brothers did the gracious thing directors do when a new film breaks their box office record. They shared a generous post congratulating the cast and crew of Brand New Day, writing, "The gauntlet has been passed." Brand New Day's numbers benefited from inflation since 2019 and the expansion of premium large formats, but that doesn't matter. Steven Spielberg did this for James Cameron when Titanic beat Jurassic Park, and Cameron did it for the Russos when Endgame passed Avatar.

The image the Russos shared is not official Marvel artwork. It was made by Boss Logic, an independent concept artist who has done professional work for film studios in the past, not by Marvel Studios artist Ryan Meinerding. It shows Spider-Man wearing the six Infinity Stones as rings, like an athlete's championship rings, and wrapped in an American flag the way athletes are during the Olympics or after winning the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals.

The chess piece in Spider-Man's hand, a king, is what people were speculating about. It may simply be an easy way of saying the new king of the box office has arrived. But why would the Russo brothers post an image of Spider-Man holding a king chess piece when that piece sits at the center of the marketing for Avengers: Doomsday? There were Doctor Doom's social media posts about controlling the chessboard, the focus on the king piece in the third teaser, where we saw Professor X and Magneto playing chess, and Robert Downey Jr.'s Infinity Vision poster, where every other piece on the board is shattered and the king casts a long shadow shaped like Doctor Doom.

Brand New Day writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers moved to Doomsday and Secret Wars

Another odd detail from TheWrap's article was that Brand New Day writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers at one point moved over to work on the scripts for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. That was the latest update on the writing of Doomsday.

First, the Russos said their longtime collaborator Stephen McFeely called them one morning with a big idea for the next movie after Endgame, which encouraged the directors to come back to Marvel Studios. Then it was reported that Michael Waldron would help revise the Doomsday script. After serving as showrunner on Loki season 1 and writing the final draft of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Waldron was hired to write the original version of Avengers: Secret Wars, back when Kang the Conqueror was planned as the main villain. In 2025, word came that Waldron would work on McFeely's Doomsday script. More recently, we learned that Waldron's next script would be Nova, which Kevin Feige confirmed to Brandon Davis will be a Marvel Studios movie.

Now the Spider-Man writers were working on Avengers: Doomsday. McKenna and Sommers are excellent writers who have worked on several franchises, including the Jumanji movies. But doesn't this hint that Feige, one of the people behind Spider-Man: No Way Home and Brand New Day, is thinking about Spider-Man's place in Doomsday?

Kevin Feige tied Brand New Day to Doomsday and X-Men

Finally, there was Kevin Feige's comment to Variety about what the excitement around Brand New Day means for Avengers: Doomsday. Feige answered in an interesting way: "For Avengers: Doomsday and X-Men, it bodes very well. When a shared universe works, this is what happens."

A shared universe? It really seems like Feige wants us to see Brand New Day as fully tied to Doomsday and X-Men, with Spider-Man at the center of that web.

Why Marvel Studios gave Sony so many characters for Brand New Day

I find it interesting that Marvel Studios let Sony use three major characters in Holland's fourth Spider-Man movie as part of the Disney and Sony licensing deal renewed in 2019. On films like No Way Home and Brand New Day, Sony covers 75% of the cost and Disney's Marvel covers 25%, while Sony takes 75% of the box office profit and Disney's Marvel takes 25%. Meanwhile, Disney keeps Spider-Man's very lucrative merchandising rights, the toys, clothing, plushies, costumes and minifigures, which is where the real money comes in.

In the earlier Holland Spider-Man films, Marvel Studios would lend one major MCU character and a few supporting characters. In Homecoming it was Tony Stark's Iron Man, along with Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts. In Far From Home it was Nick Fury, plus Happy Hogan, Maria Hill and Talos. In No Way Home it was mainly Doctor Strange, with Wong, Happy Hogan and Matt Murdock's Daredevil.

For Brand New Day, Marvel Studios handed over the Hulk, the Punisher and Yelena Belova, three very influential and important MCU characters. The Hulk and the Punisher have huge roles in the story. Yelena may only appear in a small part, but she's a very important Avenger for the franchise's future. That's a lot for a film Disney only gets 25% of the profit from, especially since the movie turns into a Jean Grey mutant movie at one point. So really, that's four huge characters for Marvel Studios' future given to a Sony movie.

I think the reason Marvel Studios and Disney gave so much to this coproduction, where Sony enjoys three quarters of the profit, could be that they're getting something bigger in return, bigger than 25% of Brand New Day's profit and all the merchandising. I think Marvel Studios is arranging to get multiple Spider-Men from Sony for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Not only Tom Holland, but other Spider-Men too, in two Marvel movies where Disney takes 100% of the profit, with Sony perhaps getting a seven or eight figure licensing fee in exchange.

How Spider-Man could arrive on Battleworld at the end of Doomsday

So what would that look like? One idea is that Avengers: Doomsday ends with Doctor Doom aiming to build a new world out of the wreckage of other worlds, one the other Avengers call Battleworld. That world is where Tom Holland's Peter Parker could appear, possibly alongside other Spider-Man variants.

When Josh Horowitz asked the Russo brothers whether Doomsday ends on a cliffhanger that leads straight into Secret Wars, the answer was that they definitely thought about the two films and built them to relate to each other, not exactly like Infinity War and Endgame, but definitely as two movies that complement each other. When Horowitz said he assumed we'd see Battleworld within a few years and asked about the final Secret Wars lineup, the reply was that they could neither confirm nor deny whether Battleworld would be in either film, or who would be on it. There's no way Joe Russo says Battleworld three times in a row and it has nothing to do with the movie he and his brother Anthony are making.

I think the whole Doomsday cast points to it. Hannah John-Kamen, who played Ghost, said of Doomsday, "The scope is so huge that when you think it can't get bigger, it gets bigger."

Jonathan Hickman's Battleworld already has room for Spider-Man variants

Jonathan Hickman's version of Battleworld has regions where Spider-Man variants could come together in a film adaptation. There's Arachnia, formed from a universe where Spider-Man disappeared after Gwen Stacy died. Mayor Norman Osborn is the baron of that land, and spider heroes from other dimensions are reborn there, including Anya Corazon, Billy Braddock, Pavitr Prabhakar, Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker. Then there's Spider Island, ruled by the Spider Queen, a version of Manhattan where she infected everyone with a spider virus and turned them into monstrous spiders. Agent Venom, Vision and Spider-Woman led the resistance there.

At the heart of the Battleworld continent sits a rebuilt Manhattan split in two, the Manhattan of Earth-616 and the Manhattan of Earth-1610, merged into one city with doubles of things like Stark Tower and S.H.I.E.L.D. Above that merged city floats Attilan, kingdom of the Inhumans, and below it lies Monster Metropolis.

For the Russo brothers' Avengers: Secret Wars, I think they'll keep everything inside a new Battleworld version of Manhattan stitched together from the other Marvel movie universes: the new Avengers Tower from Earth-616's Manhattan, the Baxter Building from Earth-828's Manhattan, and the iconic Statue of Liberty from the first X-Men movie's Magneto battle in Earth-10005's Manhattan. I think this Manhattan is where we'll see Tom Holland's Spider-Man, Sadie Sink's Jean Grey and other key characters, including versions of Spider-Man played by Tobey Maguire and hopefully Andrew Garfield. That could be the scene we see at the end of Avengers: Doomsday, or possibly in a post-credits scene that sets up Secret Wars.

That leaves me with one question. If the rumors about Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man appearing in Doomsday are true, and Ned's Spidey tracker is pointing at Tobey's universe, will Tobey's Peter Parker be on his own Earth as it's destroyed in Doomsday's opening scene? Or will we see him join Tom Holland's Peter at the end of Doomsday, impressed by Tom's new organic webbing?