Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Mike Redmond | News | March 25, 2026
Ever since Andrew Garfield famously lied to everyone’s faces about appearing in Spider-Man: No Way Home, no one believes anything a Marvel actor says about whether or not they’ll appear in an upcoming project. Heck, just this week, Jimmy Kimmel roasted James Marsden for lying about Avengers: Doomsday.
That said, I get it. Marvel wants to keep these reveals a surprise, which is next to impossible thanks to an online media environment that demands never-ending clicks. (Hello!) The smartest move these actors can make is issue a short denial and move the conversation along. Vincent D’Onofrio is not doing that.
With Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 in full swing, Marvel fans are fully convinced the series will play an integral role in this summer’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day despite the entire creative team doing their damndest to claim the Disney+ series is siloed off from the rest of the MCU. More specifically, fans are itching for a fight between D’Onofrio’s Kingpin and Tom Holland’s Spidey. However, D’Onofrio has chosen an interesting approach to curb those expectations.
“If Sony and Marvel ever get their sh*t together maybe,” D’Onofrio told a fan asking for the matchup (via Variety). “It’s a complicated rights issue. Hope so.”
D’Onofrio has trotted out this line before, but here’s the thing: none of it makes sense. According to the actor, he’s stuck only appearing in streaming series, which doesn’t track. When Disney absorbed Fox, Kevin Feige confirmed back in 2018 that “Kingpin we either have or somehow share.” Who would they share with? Sony. Who makes the Spider-Man movies? Let me check here: It’s Sony.
There’s also the fact that Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock made a cameo in No Way Home, and Jon Bernthal’s Punisher is appearing in Brand New Day. (Cox denies he’s showing up in that movie, too, but no one is buying it. See: all the lying.) There are no hurdles here, so why is D’Onofrio tossing smoke? There’s a very large chance that Born Again Season 2 will set up some interesting dynamics for Spidey’s hometown when the dust settles.
Not for nothing, Bernthal’s Punisher: One Last Kill special is dropping right on the heels of the Born Again season finale instead of after the new Spidey movie. It sure looks like Marvel is doing some serious table setting, and positioning Kingpin as a blockbuster scale threat could be on the menu.
