Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Secret Villain Addresses MCU Future After Surviving Jean Grey's Wrath

Warning: SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Brand New Day are ahead!EXCLUSIVE: the actor who played Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s secret villain has addressed what the future may hold in store for his character.

Though Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey was initially presented as Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s main antagonist, that role truly belonged to Tramell Tillman’s Bill Metzger, the head of the Department of Damage Control. Jean targeted him for having kidnapped her older sister, Sara, and it was only thanks to Spider-Man’s intervention that Metzger made it out of the movie alive. Since Metzger was in the wind by the time Brand New Day was over, the door is open for Tillman to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In an interview with ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley, Tillman shared how pleased he was that Metzger wasn’t killed off in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as he’s open to returning to playing the villainous character again in the MCU. In his words:

I am so glad that Bill did not die. There's that thing where you step into the universe, and it's a rite of passage to have a character that dies in the movie. And then the way that you die is really epic, and you want it to go out in a blaze of glory. But the fact that he did not die, there's hope. We don't know what the future holds, but I like the fact that there's hope.

Although the MCU’s Department of Damage Control was introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming, within the franchise’s timeline, it’s existed since post-The Avengers, when Tony Stark formed the agency to handle the clean-up after the Battle of New York. Since Spider-Man: No Way Home, however, Damage Control has taken a more antagonistic role in this franchise, which has also been seen in Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Wonder Man. Brand New Day took that a step further with its experimentation on both Sara and Jean, the former of whom subsequently died.

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Though Metzger enlisted Spider-Man to deal with the invisible threat that was possessing bodies, once Peter learned about Jean and what had happened to her, he went back to rescue her, though she had already accomplished that on her own with her newly-awakened telekinetic powers. Peter then persuaded Jean not to give into her rage and kill Metzger, thus allowing him to disappear at the end of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, just as Damage Control was put under investigation.

As for how he boarded Brand New Day, Tillman recalled that he was already an MCU fan, and he was especially impressed with director Destin Daniel Cretton’s work on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. As such, he was eager to accept the Metzger role when it came his way. As the actor explained:

I saw Destin's work for the other Marvel movie that he did and was really struck by the massiveness of it and the infusion of culture. And I appreciated that. I also, full disclosure, I've always wanted to be a part of the MCU, so I wanted to take the opportunity while I could. This felt like a great collaboration of people, a collection of people that could really profit well. And I am so grateful that it did.

In the comics, Metzger was featured in the X-Men: Children of the Atom limited series as the head of the Anti-Mutant Militia before he was killed by Magneto. With his distaste for mutants on display in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that could potentially pave the way for Tillman’s Metzger to participate in Jake Schreier’s X-Men reboot or another mutant-centric MCU project. The former movie is dated for May 5, 2028.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still playing in theaters. Avengers: Doomsday, the next upcoming Marvel movie, will be released on December 18.