Sure, your eyes aren’t tricking you. That clip looks better than the new trailer, and the reason has nothing to do with talent. The VFX supervisor on Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014? Jerome Chen. The VFX supervisor on Brand New Day? Also Jerome Chen. Same person. Completely different system around him.
In 2014, Chen had 50 effects artists at Sony Imageworks, the largest VFX crew the studio had ever put on a single project. They handled about 1,000 of the film’s 1,600 VFX shots on a $255 million budget. The crew shot on real film (not digital), on location in actual New York City, scanned Times Square with 36,000 photographs of over 100 billboards, and built physical lighting rigs on set so the CGI would match the real world.
Now look at how Marvel makes Spider-Man movies. No Way Home had 2,500 VFX shots spread across 12 studios and about 3,000 artists. The budget was $200 million, $55 million less than TASM2 despite having 56% more VFX shots. Digital Domain, one of the VFX vendors, was delivering final shots days before the December 17, 2021, release. They kept reworking shots into mid-January, after the movie was already in theaters.
Zoom out, and the math gets worse. Marvel released 6 films between 2008 and 2012. From 2023 to 2025, they pushed out 7 films and 7 TV shows. The Hollywood union representing VFX workers reported that Marvel pays artists about 20% below industry average and staffs one person where other studios hire three. Artists described 64-hour weeks and breakdowns on the job. Then, in February 2025, Technicolor, the parent company of MPC (three-time Oscar winner for Life of Pi, The Jungle Book, and 1917), collapsed almost overnight. 4,500 jobs gone globally. The studio had been actively working on Disney and Paramount films when the lights went out.
Brand New Day has four months before release, and trailers routinely show unfinished shots. But the gap between a 2014 Spider-Man and a 2026 Spider-Man has nothing to do with technology going backwards. The industry has been asked to do three times the work for less money per shot while its biggest studios are going under.
Sometimes I think my brother is our own kind of Forrest Gump. He was born breech, his delivery was sort of delayed and that caused him developmental problems. Slow learner they said. Stuttering badly. Always lost in his own world. Got bullied physically and mentally at school despite our father was a teacher at the school.
On his 10th attempt of repeating SPM, he told mum it could be his last attempt. On multiple occasions, he cried.
That led him to another two attempt of STPM. Led him to successfully graduated with a degree. Then another with DPLI. Meanwhile, he did oddjobs; being a guard at the hospital, schools, old folks home and helping our father at the paddy field.
On the day of his interview, he was asked about his OKU card at the end of the session. He admitted having it for being a slow learner; OKU pembelajaran. The moment he stepped out of the interview room, he went to our mother, and cried, probably out of relief, or from feeling like he was near the end of his long fight. And today is the day he is officially a teacher at a school. And he’s starting his life fresh and anew, at the age of 37.
He is still him, the older brother I’ve known since we were small. Still being as he is, just like how Forrest Gump was at the end of the movie. Still him, but he created history through perseverance and grit, straight from his own life.
It’s true that he received great support from our mother, father and all of us siblings. But one fact in life is that you can’t help a person if the person doesn’t want to be helped, even if the whole world lends a hand. But in this case, he helped himself, hence he got helped.
All the best to this new chapter, this new endeavour at the new place. We will always be there for him, through and through, as long as he is through and through with himself, as he always has been.
All the best Ed! Kijo molek!
One thing I’ve never liked about CONMEBOL is how dirty some of their teams can be.
Hwang Hee-chan 🇰🇷 stands up for himself after being hit with a dirty tackle by Bolivia’s 🇧🇴 right-back.
Love to see more bite from Asian players 👊
A dog was diagnosed with depression after suffering a miscarriage, and vets decided that working with kids at a local school would be good for her. She has never been happier. ❤️❤️❤️
Notice how Basque players walked out with children by their side, while the Palestinians carried white roses, remembering the children stolen from them.
In the Colombian League Final, 39 year old Hugo Rodallega was in tears after he could barely walk during the final 10 minutes of the game.
Play then resumed and he only went and scored the winner for Santa Fe…👏