Patrik Walker is an Emmy Award–winning writer who covers all things Comics & Superheroes. His work can also be found at the Dallas Cowboys, The Sporting News, and CBS Sports, among other outlets. One of the most respected names in his field, he is also a diehard enthusiast of all things comics, anime, gaming and movies — thriving in spaces where discussions involving those or similar topics reign supreme.
For months, industry insiders (real and perceived) joined fans in trying desperately to uncover who Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) would portray in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The talented young actress held firm to her NDA (non-disclosure agreement), and that forced everyone to wait for her grand Marvel reveal as Jean Grey; but what many don’t know is that she took someone’s place in the film.
Not specifically as Jean Grey, no, but there was a different primary antagonist planned for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker to go toe-to-toe with. There were underlings like Krondon’s Tombstone and Michael Mando’s Scorpion, and The Hand but, as it turns out, the writers had different plans altogether for the main threat — finally sharing who it was originally.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers had a recent sitdown on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, and when posed the question of how it came to be Jean Grey, they had a grand reveal of their own.
It was originally The Chameleon, the classic villain and shape-shifting brother of another longtime Spider-Man rival, Kraven the Hunter.
Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey Replaced Original Villain in Brand New Day
“We came up with metamorphosis, and everyone was very excited about that idea. Then, we were trying to come up with a villain. That is very important,” McKenna said. “We had mind control, but we hadn’t settled on what villain that would be.”
He continued: “We loved the idea. In the early days, we were talking about Die Hard with a Vengeance. ‘Can we just do a Spider-Man story that was set in ground-level New York, where you had a mysterious bomber?’ A villain that was basically toying with Spider-Man. Erik and I were trying to think of a villain that would fit that bill, and we were thinking, ‘God, what’s a classic Spider-Man villain no one has really done yet in the films?'”
“Well, Chameleon, but how do you do that?” he pondered. “They’ve done Skrulls; they’re not going to do masks.”
The Chameleon Was Aimed at Spider-Man by Sony
It wouldn’t have been the first time fans saw Dmitri Kravinoff a.k.a. The Chameleon. Portrayed by Fred Hechinger (adult) and Billy Barratt (teenager), he made his cinematic debut in 2024’s Kraven the Hunter, escaping at the end of the film; and while that set the stage for him to reappear down the line, likely in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that was exactly the reason he didn’t.
“How do we do that? And then we hit upon the idea of mind control, and what if Chameleon was using mind control?” McKenna added. “But then they had already used Dmitri in Kraven, so it was like, ‘Agh, you can’t do Chameleon.’ That’s what got us on the path of mind control, and then [that] eventually led to us getting the perfect character for that role, Jean Grey.”
Needless to say, it all worked out in the end. Sink is the new Jean Grey, and she did a masterful job in executing the role, also setting the stage for the Mutant Saga with the rebooted X-Men. It’s impossible to say if The Chameleon would’ve had the same impact on Spider-Man: Brand New Day and far beyond it, but it’s safe to say they made the right choice.
