How ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s’ Climactic Fight Scene Secretly Evokes Jean Grey’s Phoenix - Variety

In "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," now in theaters, director Destin Daniel Cretton assembled a roster of villains including The Scorpion (Michael Mando), crime boss Tombstone (Marvin Jones) and Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), while introducing The Hand, a clan of mystical ninja assassins.
Cretton framed the choice of The Hand around finding an exciting action foe, asking what better opponent than "a bunch of magic ninjas" for the wall-crawler.
The film's climax unfolds after Jean Grey is captured by the Department of Damage Control, the agency that had also taken her sister Sara (Olivia Booth-Ford); Tom Holland's Spider-Man races to rescue her and prevent her revenge against DODC director William "Bill" Metzger (Tramell Tillman).
Stunt designer Peng Zhang was directed to keep the fight metaphorically grounded, blending Spider-Man's "alien technology" with the traditional martial arts of The Hand, whose 20 ninjas move as a unified whole under one controller.
Zhang drew initial inspiration from a performance in which 20 dancers collectively formed a peacock's wings, using that concept as the foundation for the choreography.
Building on Jean Grey's comic-book connection to the Phoenix, Zhang shaped the sequence so the ninjas evoke a bird in flight, with a central ninja representing the head and the others forming its wings.