Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s newest – and most unexpected – cast announcement makes one other MCU release look far more important than before. As the fourth Spider-Man movie in the MCU timeline, there’s a lot of excitement for Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s story, especially because the previous films have been so successful.

While Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s name draws from a comic storyline, it seems much of its narrative is set to go in a different direction. This seems doubly true when looking at the most newly announced addition to the film’s cast, which raises many interesting prospects for the movie – and makes another upcoming MCU release link to it more closely.

The Punisher Is Set To Be Part Of The Cast Of Spider-Man: Brand New Day

With Spider-Man: Brand New Day set for an impending 2026 release date, theories about which MCU characters could appear in its story have been rife, particularly since the MCU Spider-Man movies have commonly featured major crossovers. However, few could have predicted the latest Brand New Day cast announcement.

This is namely because June 2025 brought the news that the Punisher will be making an MCU return in the story of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Given how different the two characters are – and how Castle’s last appearance was in the TV-MA rated Daredevil: Born Again – this understandably came as something of a surprise.

While Spider-Man and the Punisher have appeared side-by-side in many comic stories, exactly how the MCU will execute their on-screen movie meeting is still not a decidedly clear matter. Given the duo have worked as allies and also fought against one another in Marvel’s comics, it’s also not yet clear whether Castle will prove an ally or enemy to Spider-Man.

However, one thing that is more clear is that this makes the Punisher’s MCU story more integral to the franchise than ever. Not only is Brand New Day the character’s first major live-action movie appearance since 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, it also serves as a way to make another upcoming release all the more noteworthy by proximity.

The Punisher’s Spider-Man Role Makes Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Seem Way More Important

Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be the Punisher’s big-screen return, but we will be seeing him before then. Of course, the Punisher does have his own upcoming spinoff in the works, but his role in Daredevil: Born Again season 2 looks perhaps more pressing still in this regard.

Where the Punisher’s upcoming special presentation looks likely to focus more squarely on Frank Castle facing the corrupt “Punisher” squad who use his name and symbol for their own purposes, Daredevil: Born Again season 2 looks set to explore more about New York on a wider level. Indeed, Daredevil: Born Again season 1’s ending looks to make this unavoidable.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is set to delve into major matters for New York, like Kingpin’s mayoral run – and his troubling goals – as well as Bullseye’s own plans in the city, and the seeming emergence of new vigilantes like Angela Del Toro becoming the second White Tiger. As such, there’s a lot of ways the city could change here.

With Daredevil: Born Again season 2 set to release in March 2026, its run should take place pretty close to Brand New Day and its own July 2026 release. If season 2 runs with the weekly release schedule season 1 did, the final episodes should release 2 months before the Spider-Man movie, making it seem like they could closely align.

How Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Could Help Set Up The Punisher’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day Story

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 most obviously helps set up the Punisher’s storyline in Spider-Man: Brand New Day by coming not long before the MCU movie. However, if it follows up on the first chapter of the show, it also looks like it could do far more than just show where the antihero is at before the movie.

We’ve long known Frank Castle has a complex relationship with Daredevil, as this dates all the way back to the original Daredevil show on-screen. Delving further into how the Punisher relates to other heroes – and what his time as a lethal New York vigilante has been like of late – are concepts that could surely carry through into Brand New Day.

On a similar note, seeing the Punisher’s return to being a more active figure in the New York vigilante scene should also prove interesting. Since Spider-Man is also adverse to straight up killing his enemies, seeing the path of destruction and bloodshed Castle weaves should help tease the conflict that will likely emerge between the two early on.

Hopefully, the next chapters of Frank Castle’s story will also depict more about the level of brutality the antihero employs, both for those who didn’t catch his prior appearances in Daredevil and The Punisher, and so it can be underlined that he and Spider-Man are profoundly different protagonists. That said, this could also serve wider benefits too.

The MCU Tying All Its New York Stories Together Would Be The Perfect Way To Fix A Recent Complaint

One of the more prominent complaints about the recent releases of the MCU is that their stories tie together and crossover less than earlier chapters of the franchise. Indeed, with less of an overarching and unified story thus far in the Multiverse Saga, there’s also less reason to have other heroes and villains cross paths in the same way.

As such, having the stories of the various heroes and vigilantes who live and operate in New York tie together in this way looks like it could address these complaints while also helping the world feel more lived in. This could serve to balance out the impending epic multiverse stories of the likes of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, too.

It already seems like Daredevil: Born Again season 2 will have to address Thunderbolts*‘s story, wherein The Void briefly ravaged New York and sent many citizens into its nightmare dimension. Leveraging this into also setting up what can come next – and unifying the street-level story of the city – thus seems arguably par for the course.

The Punisher’s story in Spider-Man: Brand New Day could go several different ways depending on how those involved decide his MCU movie debut should work. However, it seems that any of these routes would make Daredevil: Born Again season 2 more important in the big picture of things, which is an exciting prospect to consider indeed.