Status: Confirmed. The official art book for Spider-Man: Brand New Day has landed Marvel Studios in an AI controversy. Fans combing through The Art of Spider-Man: Brand New Day have spotted what looks unmistakably like generative AI imagery in one of the book’s New York City concept pieces, and the Spider-Man: Brand New Day AI art backlash has been building online ever since DiscussingFilm flagged the page. For a film that just became the biggest box office story of 2026, it is an unwelcome asterisk.
What did the Spider-Man: Brand New Day art book reveal?
The Art of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the roughly $50 hardcover released a few weeks after the film’s July 31 theatrical debut, collects concept art and design work from the movie’s development. Among the pieces is a cityscape titled “Big City, Little Spider”, credited to artist Scott McInnes, whose previous credits include Morbius, Fantastic Four: First Steps and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Look closely at that image and the telltale fingerprints of generative AI are hard to miss: warped buildings, fire escapes that dissolve into nonsense geometry, and taxis that appear to melt into one another. As The Direct notes in its report, the page effectively confirms that generative AI was used somewhere in the concept design process for the film’s version of New York City.
Is this one image or a wider problem?
Based on what has surfaced so far, “Big City, Little Spider” appears to be the only piece in the book with obvious AI artifacts. That matters. Concept art departments across Hollywood have quietly experimented with AI tools for mood boards and early ideation, and a single early-development image is a very different situation from AI-generated final frames appearing in the movie itself. There is no suggestion that anything in the finished film, which we covered extensively during its record run, used generative imagery.
Still, the fact that the image made it into a premium-priced official art book, presented alongside hand-crafted work by Marvel’s artists, is what has fans and working artists most frustrated. An art book is meant to celebrate the craft; printing an AI-glitched cityscape in it reads as carelessness at best.
What have the Russo Brothers and Marvel said about AI?
Neither Marvel Studios nor Sony has issued a statement on the art book page. But the people steering the MCU’s next two years have talked about AI before. The Russo Brothers, who direct Avengers: Doomsday this December, have called AI “potentially a valuable tool” while stressing that “artists always have to remain in control.” Industrial Light & Magic’s Rob Bredow has similarly said AI must be used “thoughtfully,” with “full access and the rights to the training data.”
It’s potentially a valuable tool, but artists always have to remain in control.
The Russo Brothers on AI in filmmaking
Why the backlash stings: Secret Invasion and the layoffs
This is not Marvel’s first AI flashpoint. The 2023 Disney+ series Secret Invasion drew heavy criticism for its AI-generated opening titles, and the studio has more recently trimmed parts of its visual development team, the very department that produces concept art like the pieces in this book. Put those together and fans see a pattern: cheaper tools moving in while the artists who defined the MCU’s look move out. That context, more than one warped taxi, is why this story travelled so fast.
It also lands at an awkward moment for the franchise machine around Spider-Man. The character is carrying Marvel’s entire 2026, from the film’s movie-first strategy to animation, and scrutiny of everything with the Spider-Man logo on it is at an all-time high, as we saw with the Betty Brant conversation earlier this week.
What happens next
Watch for three things: whether Marvel or the book’s publisher quietly addresses the page in future printings, whether artist unions and concept art communities push for disclosure rules on AI in official merchandise, and whether Disney gets ahead of this before the Avengers: Doomsday marketing blitz begins this autumn. With the art book already spoiling scrapped ideas like a grey Hulk sequence, its second print run may look a little different.
Sources: The Direct (21 Aug 2026), DiscussingFilm, Variety. Image: Marvel Studios / Sony Pictures.
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