AI will be Spider-Man’s only friend in ‘Brand New Day.’ The internet is losing its mind over it

Since the massive success of Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021, fans have been eagerly awaiting the next Peter Parker-centered film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Five years later, the fourth MCU Spider-Man film, subtitled Brand New Day, is finally coming to theaters—but a reveal in the screenplay’s first page has some fans abandoning the hype train. 

Director Destin Daniel Cretton shared the first three pages of Brand New Day with Entertainment Weekly, complete with annotations from himself, stars Zendaya and Tom Holland, and other department heads. The pages reveal that the story picks up nine months after the events of No Way Home. Spoiler alert: Peter Parker, forced to erase himself from the memories of everyone on Earth (including his girlfriend MJ and best friend Ned), now lives in isolation.

“For the first time, Peter is entirely alone,” Cretton emphasizes in the margins. The opening scene sees Peter fiddling with homemade technology, with another annotation pointing out that he no longer has access to money or gadgets from his former mentor Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.

“All of his tech needs to have been made by Peter,” the annotation reads.

As Peter’s first in-scene line of dialogue reveals, that tech includes an AI assistant named E.V., the source of the internet’s ire. “Could you check the calibration on my targeting matrix?” Peter asks, and E.V. gets to work. 

Another note from Cretton says that with his new isolated lifestyle, E.V. is “sadly, the closest thing Peter has to a friend.”

‘The biggest eye roll of my life’: Social media rags on E.V.

E.V.’s presence in the screenplay was immediately divisive on social media. The mere inclusion of AI, let alone an AI companion, was enough to immediately turn some people off from Brand New Day.

“And just like that I’m not excited for this movie anymore,” one user wrote. “I don’t like Peter befriending ChatGPT and asking stuff like ‘should I ask her out’ or whatever, no matter how ‘normalized’ it is nowadays.”

“Just did the biggest eye roll of my life,” quipped another user in response to the news.

Others lamented the lost art of superhero narration, assuming that Peter will address E.V. with his thoughts throughout Brand New Day instead of monologuing directly to the audience. “Can’t the neurotic character that talks to himself all the time just talk to himself?” one user asked. “We just did a whole Batman movie where he was narrating like Taxi Driver.”

An AI-dependent Spider-Man is no Spider-Man at all, others argued. “Peter Parker is known from the comics for his extensive internal dialogue and self-talk,” one poster wrote, adding that he “has always had friends, both as Peter and as Spidey.”

“The idea of him being so lonely and pathetic that an AI bot is ‘the closest thing he has to a friend’ is just ridiculous and feels like a violation of the character,” they concluded.

But beyond its implications for an iconic character, what message does portraying AI companionship on screen convey in 2026?

The real-world impact of AI on loneliness

AI has always been present in Marvel movies. In 2008’s Iron Man, the very first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, protagonist Tony Stark has his own AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S., which he jokes with and asks for help from, much like Peter seems posed to do with E.V. throughout Brand New Day.

But in 2008, a hyper-intelligent AI assistant was science fiction. Treating it like a friend could be played for laughs, or as the charming quirk of a tech genius. In 2026, the concept of an AI assistant as a stand-in for human friends is far more tangible—and far more controversial. 

Multiple studies have shown that increased usage of AI, particularly turning to AI for companionship, is associated with lower well-being and emotional dependence. In 2025, the infamous wearable AI bestie Friend had its million-dollar advertising campaign in New York City met with graffiti, vandalism, and vitriol, defaced with messages like “stop profiting off of loneliness” and “AI wouldn’t care if you lived or died.”

Can Brand New Day‘s portrayal of an AI friendship avoid sparking the same controversy? It all depends on framing. Superheroes often act as role models, leading to some critics’ concern over a Marvel protagonist depending on AI for some semblance of friendship. 

But some social media users remain hopeful that Brand New Day’s treatment of AI might be more nuanced. “If the movie successfully executes a message about how isolating and talking to what amounts to a chatbot is,” one user wrote, “then I will never stop glazing this movie.”

Others urged Spider-Man fans not to write the movie off so quickly over a minor detail. “I think if this completely ruins your excitement of a movie considering you have no idea how the AI is utilized in the story and how much of the other stuff is seeming to be great, you care more about checklists for a character than telling a compelling story with the character,” wrote another poster.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes to theaters on July 31.

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