A viral Spider-Man: Brand New Day poster drawn by a Canadian theater employee charmed the internet, then head office intervened.
Early in August, Drake Landon showed up for his shift at Famous Players 6 in Prince George and discovered the theater had zero official posters for the record-breaking, longest Spider-Man movie ever.
So, rather than leave the display bare, he grabbed a marker, channeled the early-2010s Spooder-Man meme, and put the final result on display. The drawing went viral and even drew praise from Cineplex executives, but had to be taken down shortly after its success.
Viral hand-drawn Spider-Man poster gets pulled by head office
Landon shared the story on Reddit and admitted he had stayed anonymous because he worried about being called a fraud.
He explained that his boss told him the “head office called and asked for it to be taken down” to avoid upsetting the studio. Landon retrieved the original artwork, which featured a charmingly crude sketch of the web-slinger flashing a peace sign alongside a handwritten apology for the missing official materials.
It’s clear misspellings only add to the appeal, and the whole thing felt like a warm throwback to an era when the internet thrived on weird little inside jokes shared among friends. He snapped a selfie with the poster, his hand resting on the frame.
Commenters on Reddit praised Landon’s ingenuity and begged for prints, while others lamented that corporate lawyers had once again sucked the fun out of a harmless moment that had done nothing but endear the theater to its community.
A day prior, Landon told The Hollywood Reporter that the Spooder-Man meme from the early 2010s inspired the piece, and Cineplex VP Michelle Saba noted that the team “did have a little fun” while waiting for official materials. Now Landon plans to produce limited copies or redrawn duplicates for fans who have been clamoring for a piece of the action.
The incident is just the latest bizarre chapter for a film that already survived a screening evacuated by an audience member’s Hulk-sized fart, proving that Brand New Day cannot catch a break.
