What Peter Parker does for work and how he affords everything in Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Since the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, everyone has been confused not just by Jean Grey or the ending, but also by how Peter Parker is actually paying for everything and what he does for work.

After Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter loses pretty much everything. Doctor Strange’s spell makes the whole world forget who he is, he’s living on his own in a tiny flat, and Tony Stark is no longer around to fund his Spider-Man tech.

Fast forward four years, and Peter is somehow still paying rent, buying groceries, building his own tech and even buying flowers for Aunt May’s grave. The film never actually explains where his money comes from.

The most obvious explanation is that Peter has some kind of job. The only problem is that Brand New Day never tells us what it is. Unlike previous Spider-Man films, we never see Peter delivering pizzas, taking photos for the Daily Bugle or working at Oscorp.

Instead, the new film makes it pretty clear that being Spider-Man has completely taken over his life. He’s constantly monitoring crime reports, fixing his suit, building new gadgets and swinging across New York to help people.

The NYPD might actually be paying him

Right at the start of the film, there’s a small moment that loads of people probably missed. Detective Jean DeWolff jokes that Peter shouldn’t be “married to the job” because he’s always working. Throughout the film, Peter has a close working relationship with her. He also has access to police crime-tracking systems, meaning he often knows about emergencies before anyone else.

The film never says Spider-Man is officially employed by the NYPD. But if he’s working alongside the police every day and has access to their resources, could they actually be paying him?

It’s definitely possible, although Marvel never confirms it. It would also explain how Peter manages to pay rent, buy food and keep making new Spider-Man technology despite spending basically all of his time saving people.

He could be working from home

Another possibility is that Peter earns money online. After all, he’s one of the smartest people in the MCU. He builds advanced technology in a tiny flat using limited resources, so doing freelance work like coding, programming, or scientific research would probably be pretty easy for him.

It would also fit around his Spider-Man schedule because he could work whenever he isn’t out fighting crime. If that’s the case, it would make sense why the film never actually shows him working.

Aunt May and Tony Stark may have left him money

There’s another theory that goes all the way back to Spider-Man: No Way Home. Doctor Strange’s spell erased everyone’s memories of Peter Parker, but it never explained whether Peter’s legal identity disappeared completely.

If things like bank accounts, legal documents and official records still exist, then Peter could still have access to money that already belonged to him. That means Aunt May could have left him an inheritance in her will. Nobody needs to remember Peter for that to happen, as long as his legal identity still exists after the spell.

The same idea also applies to Tony Stark. If Peter’s bank accounts survived Doctor Strange’s spell, then any money Tony gave him before his death could still belong to Peter. The spell made people forget Peter Parker. It didn’t necessarily erase everything he owned.

Of course, Marvel has never explained exactly how the spell works, so this is only another theory.

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Featured image credit: Sony Pictures