By George & Josh Bate
Jon Bernthal will make his big screen debut as The Punisher in Spider-Man: Brand New Day after playing the fan-favorite vigilante for 10 years in television. Bernthal’s relationship with Spider-Man actor Tom Holland dates back even further as the two helped one another film their respective audition tapes for The Punisher and Spider-Man.
“Tom’s top notch for me,” Bernthal said. “And to have gotten to know him as a 17 year old guy who is just on a mission to do this. And I had never seen the focus and the dedication and the belief he went and he got this thing. And then to sort of root him on from afar and to see what’s come of his life and what this unbelievable franchise and so many people adore him. And then to become this unbelievable man and then to come back and step onto this set and to sort of see it fully realized from some dinky room in Ireland where we were slapping together these audition tapes.”
The Punisher made his first comic book appearance in 1974’s The Amazing Spider-Man #129, making Frank Castle the perfect fit for a big-screen Spider-Man movie. But fans, including Bernthal himself, were concerned about how the violent and unhinged character would fit into a PG-13, more family-friendly superhero film.
“Look, I’m enormously protective of Frank and the Punisher fans and what he stands for,” Bernthal passionately explained. “And that was a real question for me. And it’s such a testament to Destin and to Amy and Kevin and Tom and this entire group. It was a concern for them, too….I think what we set out to do is to make it believable that The Punisher could walk out of one of those TV-MA shows and onto this set and vice versa. And I think you’re going to get that while also just paying respect to this unbelievable tone of this film and what Destin did.”
Holland also spoke enthusiastically about welcoming The Punisher into the fold. “It was a real challenge to try and find a way to bring a character that is, for lack of a better word, an R-rated character and put him into our world,” Holland said. “And I think Destin managed that tonal shift in such an amazing way. Because I feel like we don’t compromise Frank and the Punisher in any way.”