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By H. Alan Scott
Senior Editor
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Can a superhero movie actually address a loneliness epidemic? Yes, if you ask Tom Holland.
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in theaters July 31, we meet Holland's Peter Parker aka Spider-Man "at the beginning of the darkest chapter of his life," Holland told Newsweek and other select outlets at a press conference alongside Zendaya (MJ), Jacob Batalon (Ned), producers Amy Pascal and Kevin Feige and director Destin Daniel Cretton. Following the events of the last film, the world has forgotten Peter Parker, leaving those closest to him, like girlfriend MJ and best friend Ned, once again in the dark about who Spider-Man really is.
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"To me, the thing I love the most about the film is that it really represents, or it's a cautionary tale for the dangers of living a life alone and not having a community, not having friends," Holland said.
It's a portrayal that is particularly poignant in 2026. In 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared loneliness a public health epidemic, warning that lacking social connection carries health risks comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And the crisis hits Spider-Man's core audience hardest: A 2024 American Psychiatric Association poll found 30 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 feel lonely every day or several times a week and 10 percent of adults report loneliness all the time, while Pew Research Center found roughly a quarter of adults under 30 feel lonely or isolated all or most of the time.
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The tragedy is that Peter knows better. Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man warned him about this in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. "A lesson that he learned from Andrew's character in the previous movie is that, you know, sometimes the bravest thing that you can do is ask for help," Holland said. "And he is actively ignoring that advice, and it is having a profound effect on his life as a human being."
Here's the irony of it all: While Peter suffers, Spider-Man is thriving. Holland described the split as "standing on the world stage and beaming and doing all of this amazing stuff to then coming home to a pretty grubby New York apartment and, you know, nursing a headache to go to sleep."
"It's just so true to what young people are going through on a daily basis," he added. "I really kind of dove into this new idea because it just felt so relatable, so prevalent with what's happening in the world. And I love telling a movie on this scale that is something that I really think will resonate with young people."
Pascal, who has guided Spider-Man across multiple generations, said isolation is what connects the entire ensemble. "They're all going through the sense of isolation and feeling different and feeling alienated and feeling in denial about the lives that they're living," she said.
For Pascal, the whole movie comes down to one small moment: Peter "looking at the key to the city, which is the thing that's supposed to make him feel good about himself, and this little washing machine in this little apartment and his suit in there spinning around, I thought that is the essence of Spider-Man."
Even the title is aspirational. "Brand New Day, I think, is something that Peter hasn't quite learned yet at the beginning of this movie," Cretton said. "I think it represents something that he is deep inside hoping for."
That hope extends to Peter's closest friends, living full lives with no memory of Peter. "Unfortunately for Peter, you know, Ned and MJ live really great full lives," Batalon joked, before conceding that "they do feel like something's kind of missing."
Zendaya sees it in how MJ and Peter have essentially swapped outlooks. "In previous films MJ was always the pessimist, and it was Peter that was always the optimist," she said. "And so it's interesting to see that reversal. You know, now that he's alone, he's kind of adopted that negativity, and she's adopted his positivity without even knowing it."
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There's another layer to all of this, too: The people delivering the message. Holland and Zendaya, newly married, are at the peak of their celebrity, starring in two of the biggest films of the year, Brand New Day and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, out within weeks of each other. Interest in the two of them alone will fill theater seats, which makes the film's message of community all the more potent.
And it should be noted how rare this moment is in Hollywood. It isn't often that two of the biggest movie stars in the world happen to be married to one another. You could point to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the 2010s, but that pairing came with detractors given its origins during Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston. With Holland and Zendaya, we've watched their love grow organically since the first film in this franchise, their careers rising separately as their partnership came into focus over 10 years. The closest true comparison might be Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the 1950s. That's how rare this is, and it's genuinely something to be excited about.
The decade means something to the people who lived it, too. "Our relationship as three young kids that, you know, our lives all changed on the same day, and to go through that with these guys, I couldn't be more grateful," Holland said. Batalon called it "very beautiful to really be a part of this after 10 years."
Even the filmmaking is coming full circle. Feige noted the early Marvel Cinematic Universe films avoided shots of Spider-Man swinging through Manhattan because it had been done so often before. "Now, it's been 10 years since we've done it, so it's exciting again," he said.
As for Peter finding his way back? "I'm rooting for him," Zendaya said, then paused. "Not looking good."
The fans will show up to find out. "The fans are as much a part of this process as we are," Holland said. "We make these movies for them, we listen to them."
If some of them walk out of the theater and text a friend they haven't seen in a while, well, that's star power put to good use.
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