RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Logo text [This story contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day .]
With their concluding dap in Spider-Man: Brand New Day , Jacob Batalon and Tom Holland have joined Predator 's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers in the pantheon of cinema's most iconic handshakes.
Batalon's Ned Leeds and Holland's Peter Parker might be at the very top of the list when one considers the narrative and emotional significance behind the trademark gesture they've been giving each other since their best friendship debuted in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming . However, the exact meaning behind this particular exchange has already been hotly debated by the audience that helped the fourth Holland-led Spidey tale surpass Avengers: Endgame for the biggest domestic opening weekend of all time at $360 million. The Destin Daniel Cretton -directed pic also accumulated a worldwide opening of $941 million, second only to Endgame , which again featured Ned and Peter dapping upon their return from the blip. Related Stories Movies 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' Hits $1 Billion Globally With Second-Fastest Pace Ever Movies The Box Office Is Finally Back: "We're All Breathing a Hell of a Lot Easier"
After Peter had Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) wipe everyone's memory of him at the end of Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home , moviegoers largely assumed the spell that was meant to protect Earth-199999 — including Ned and Peter's girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya) — would be broken somehow, someway. But that's not exactly what happened despite the MCU debut of the telepathic X-Men character, Jean Grey (Sadie Sink). Ned and Peter interact throughout the film as Peter's faux neighbor persona, "Maynard," as well as Spider-Man. But it's not until the final scene at a bodega that Peter finally reintroduces himself to Ned as Peter before shaking hands.
As they clasp hands and break into fist bumps and finger guns, Ned seemingly recognizes his best friend for the first time in four years, hence his enlightened response of "Peter?" This is likely the reading that most moviegoers walked away with considering it's the most satisfying version of events. If Ned doesn't actually have a fragment of his memory back, then the scene borders on what is regarded by film and TV writers as "schmuck bait."
Nevertheless, some fans have instead argued that Ned's muscle memory is all that remains intact, and his utterance of the name Peter is just him connecting the dots to MJ's earlier reveal that Spider-Man's name is Peter. Others have argued that Jean's psionic freeze that affected a large chunk of New York City's population helped begin the restoration of Ned and MJ's memories since they were also trapped in that energy field. But the latter theory makes less sense when you consider that Jean already possessed MJ in the middle of the movie, and it still didn't reignite her memories when she later found Peter's confessional letter that he inexplicably left out in the open at Frank Castle's (Jon Bernthal) domicile.
In Batalon's case, he doesn't have the black-and-white answer, but he seems to lean toward the idea that some progress has been made toward reviving Ned's memories of Peter.
"It seems a little open-ended. What if it's just muscle memory? What if he just remembers that handshake but nothing else about Peter? What if he just repeats 'Peter' because that's what Peter says his name is in that moment? I don't know," Batalon tells The Hollywood Reporter . "I feel like it's really up to interpretation for everyone. There could be a slight glint or little glimmer [of recognition], if you will."
The animated post-credit scene also features Batalon's modulated voice as part of Ned's Spider-Man tracking app, Spidey Tracker. The program implies that Spider-Man, or a Spider-Man, is off-world, hinting at the Wall Crawler's presence in an upcoming Avengers movie that is likely to be Secret Wars . Unfortunately, Batalon has no added insight as to what his character's tech is alluding to here. "You think me, of all people, knows top-brass-level information? Come on," Batalon says mid-laugh.
During early press for Brand New Day , Holland told a story on Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast involving an ineffective scene that shut down production for the day in order for Cretton and his on-set writer, Justin Kuritzkes, to reconceive. Batalon confirms that it was the scene that is now represented as Ned and a masked Spider-Man building Star Wars Legos and quoting The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring , as MJ draws Ned and an unmasked Spider-Man doing exactly that.
"We shot [a version of that scene] the day before, and it didn't really feel as organic and as real as we were used to. So that was a day where we all stopped filming, and then we sat down to put a bunch of ideas together for the scene," Batalon shares. "Then Destin and his writing partner [Justin Kuritzkes] were able to rewrite and fix that scene. They made it what it is in the movie."
Below, during a spoiler conversation with THR , Batalon also discusses Jean's codename in the script, as well as portraying a more grown-up Ned for the first time.
When we last spoke in May 2024, you were filming Novocaine at the time, and you said you hadn't really heard anything concrete about what would become Spider-Man: Brand New Day . When did things start to get rolling from your perspective?
They actually started checking availability shortly after we had that talk. But then nothing really happened until early 2025. Luckily, we were able to go by then.
Tom Holland earned his way into the writers room for Brand New Way. Did he ever ask for, or did you ever offer, your two cents as far as what you'd like to see for Ned in this one?
Not particularly. In general, Destin was always open and willing to collaborate with myself and Zendaya about our characters. So the really beautiful part is that Tom not only has his fingerprints over the entire movie, but we were also given more libe...
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