Marvel Studios has settled a question that’s been dividing fans for months: Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes place before Avengers: Doomsday in the MCU timeline, not after it. Kevin Feige confirmed the order directly in an exclusive interview with Collider, conducted alongside producer Amy Pascal.
Asked plainly where the film sits relative to Doomsday, Feige gave a short, direct answer: “It takes place before.” When pressed on whether that meant immediately before, he clarified again, simply: “No, it’s before.” Pascal then filled in the specific gap, telling Collider the story picks up four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home.
That four-year jump matters. It means audiences are returning to Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker well after the fallout of Doctor Strange’s memory-wiping spell has already settled in. Aunt May is gone, MJ and Ned no longer remember Peter exists, and he’s been operating as Spider-Man alone for years — relying on a homemade suit instead of Stark technology Collider notes the time jump gives the film room to be a grounded, street-level Spider-Man story rather than another multiverse-scale event picking up days after the last one ended.
The timeline question had been genuinely unclear for months. GeekTyrant reported in April that a theater listing had briefly suggested the opposite order, based on Thunderbolts*’s post-credits scene placing Doomsday in late 2027 — right around when Marvel’s own synopsis placed Brand New Day. Neither studio had clarified the discrepancy until now.
ScreenRant had separately worked out that the film’s 2028 setting placed it roughly a year after Thunderbolts*, and after the events of Captain America: Brave New World and both seasons of Daredevil: Born Again — but without an explicit statement from Marvel, exactly where it landed relative to Doomsday specifically remained a guessing game until Feige’s comments to Collider.
With the order now confirmed, Spider-Man: Brand New Day stands as the only MCU theatrical release arriving between Thunderbolts* and Avengers: Doomsday, giving it outsized importance as a bridge film. Feige has separately teased that Florence Pugh‘s Yelena Belova, a central figure in Doomsday, may appear in Brand New Day first, fueling speculation about a direct crossover tease before the two Avengers-centered films arrive.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31, 2026. Avengers: Doomsday follows five months later on December 18, 2026.
