The Spider-Man: Brand New Day villain was nearly the Chameleon, the classic identity-swapping foe, before Sony’s Kraven the Hunter movie put him off-limits. Writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers revealed on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith podcast that Dmitri Smerdyakov, aka the Chameleon, was in the running as the film’s main antagonist until the idea was dropped.
The film’s metamorphosis theme was settled early, and the pair wanted a street-level villain in the mould of Die Hard with a Vengeance’s bomber — someone toying with Spider-Man across ground-level New York. The Chameleon, a Spider-Man rogue from 1963’s The Amazing Spider-Man #1, seemed the obvious pick. Then reality intervened: Marvel had already used shapeshifting Skrulls, so the Chameleon’s signature disguises needed reworking, and Sony had already used the character in live action.
“We were thinking, ‘Gosh, what’s a Spider-Man classic villain that no one has really done yet in the films?’ We were going, ‘Chameleon?’ But how do you do that?”
“It was like, ugh, you can’t do Chameleon, but that got us on the path of mind control, and then mind control eventually led to us getting who was the perfect character for that role, who was Jean Grey. That was a journey.”
Chris McKenna, co-writer of Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Why the Spider-Man: Brand New Day Villain Changed
Fred Hechinger played the Chameleon as Kraven’s half-brother in Sony’s panned 2024 Kraven the Hunter film. The movie flopped at the box office, but its one lasting effect on the MCU may be this veto: Marvel could not follow it with a fresh take on the same character, so the mind-control concept McKenna and Sommers had built was handed to Jean Grey instead.
Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey became the film’s antagonist, a choice that worked out well enough — the writers say she technically killed no one, and the movie has since become the highest-grossing Spider-Man film ever, crossing $2 billion.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in UAE cinemas now, having opened on 31 July. The full interview is on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, and IGN reported the reveal.
Who is the Chameleon in Spider-Man comics?
The Chameleon (Dmitri Smerdyakov) is a Spider-Man villain who first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in 1963. He is a master of disguise and impersonation, and the half-brother of Kraven the Hunter.
Who played the Chameleon in Kraven the Hunter?
Fred Hechinger played Dmitri Smerdyakov, aka the Chameleon, in Sony’s 2024 Kraven the Hunter film, appearing as Kraven’s half-brother.
Who is the villain in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
Sadie Sink plays Jean Grey, the film’s mind-controlling antagonist. The character took over a mind-control concept originally developed for the Chameleon, who was dropped because he had already appeared in Sony’s Kraven the Hunter.
