Jon Bernthal joins Spider-Man: Brand New Day, now it's time to bring Kingpin to the MCU movies already

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is approximately a year away from its release date, but the wall-crawler's fourth movie is in the news almost every week. On June 20, 2025, The Hollywood Reporter published a story that had fans in a celebratory mood. The report revealed that Jon Bernthal has reprised his role as the Punisher/Frank Castle for the movie.

This move had fans happy that Brand New Day would be more grounded than Spider-Man: Far from Home or Spider-Man: No Way Home. Bernthal's casting in the movie also has fans wishing that Marvel could sort out its rights issues and manage to get a deal done to get Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk/Kingpin to appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

It is worth noting that while Fisk is usually associated with Matt Murdock/Daredevil, in the comics, the Kingpin has frequently tussled with other Marvel heroes, too. However, specifically three Marvel heroes have been a thorn in Fisk's side throughout the history of Marvel Comics: Daredevil, the Punisher, and Spider-Man.

Vincent D'Onofrio, back in a January 2022 interview with ComicBook Nation Podcast, expressed his hope to clash with the wall-crawler on the big screen. Theoretically, the stage has been building for a while to have D'Onofrio appear in Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Fisk. Here's the issue: Marvel Studios doesn't have the movie rights to Wilson Fisk. The Kingpin actor himself confirmed it.

Why can't Vincent D'Onofrio be a part of Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

On April 3, 2025, actor Vincent D'Onofrio appeared on Josh Horowitz's Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, just days after the title of the fourth Spidey movie was announced as Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In the 55-minute interview, the actor addressed the chances of him appearing in a Spider-Man movie or any other MCU flick:

"The only thing I know is not positive, it's a very hard thing to do for Marvel to use my character. It's a very hard thing to do because of ownership and stuff. Right now, I'm only usable for television series, different kinds of series, whatever it is, but not even a one-off Fisk movie or anything like that. It's all caught up in rights and stuff. I don't know when that would work out, or if it would ever work out at all, actually, really..."

Based on his comments, it means we can see Wilson Fisk only in MCU TV shows because Marvel Studios owns the character's TV rights and not the film rights. Wilson Fisk's movie rights are probably owned by Sony, given the character's history with Spider-Man. While we may feel that all Marvel characters can appear in a Marvel movie, the truth is that's not the case.

However, it's not as hopeless as some might feel. The wall-crawler's rights remained firmly in Sony's grip till 2015. However, the underperformance of 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a turning point in the character's cinematic history. Fans were burnt out by not one but three divisive Spider-Man movies (2007's Spider-Man 3, 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, and 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2).

Thus, in February 2015, Sony and Marvel entered a historic rights-sharing agreement, which would allow Marvel to use Peter Parker/Spider-Man and his supporting characters, with exceptions like Venom. Thus, all that's needed for Vincent D'Onofrio to appear in an MCU movie or even Spider-Man: Brand New Day is that the two studios work out a deal.

Adding Kingpin to Spider-Man: Brand New Day will give fans a grounded Spidey flick that they've been waiting for since 2017

2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming was considered a return to form for the character, whose cinematic outings at that point were considered divisive for an entire decade. Fans and critics alike have pointed at Homecoming's grounded feel, something that they had felt was missing from the character's film appearances since 2004's Spider-Man 2.

However, the next two Tom Holland Spidey films ditched the grounded nature in favor of more comic-book elements like monsters and the multiverse. Now, Frank Castle's inclusion in Spider-Man: Brand New Day seems to indicate that the movie might be retaining Homecoming's grounded, realistic nature. If the movie is indeed grounded and realistic, it will need a human villain rather than a superpowered one.

It should also be noted that Wilson Fisk's mayoral speech does have a reference to Spider-Man in Daredevil: Born Again, Season 1, Episode 2. Thus, Brand New Day might follow Peter Parker navigate a New York City that's hostile to costumed heroes, and, in the middle of that, he encounters Frank Castle.