Thirteen days into its release, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already crossed $1.8 billion at the global box office, and it topped Taiwan's annual box office chart too. In theory, a blockbuster of this caliber shouldn't have an empty poster case outside the theater. But at the Famous Players 6 in Prince George, British Columbia, the official materials simply hadn't arrived — and the reason was straightforward: shipping delays.
The display case couldn't stay empty, so the manager handed a paintbrush to an employee named Drake and told him to figure something out. Instead of recreating an official movie still, Drake went straight for the long-running internet meme style known as "Spoderman" — exaggerated proportions, stretched-out limbs, and an almost comically oversized expression on Spider-Man's face. He even added a handwritten note off to the side that read something like, "Sorry! We never received the actual poster! Apologies for any inconvenience!" Rather than hide the fact that materials were missing, he chose to paint the situation right into the poster itself.
Once photos hit social media, a single post racked up over 46,000 likes. The comments section response was surprisingly unanimous — instead of mocking the theater for not getting its promotional materials, people praised this "unofficial poster" as more entertaining than the real thing. Some even joked that Marvel should turn it into a special Blu-ray cover edition.
More than the art style itself, what really caught people's attention was how Drake made it. Comments kept echoing sentiments like, "I respect that this person chose to draw it by hand instead of using AI." At a time when blockbuster promotional art increasingly leans on AI assistance, a purely hand-drawn poster — with lines rough enough to look almost amateurish — ended up standing out precisely because of that.
Drake later chimed in himself to confirm just how simple the whole thing started: shipping went wrong, his boss told him to draw something to hold things over, and he never expected it to blow up like this. The buzz even caught the attention of Canadian radio station 101.3 The River, which reposted the photo on its official Facebook page. In the comments, someone claiming to be Drake's mother added a local detail — the poster has now become a photo-op spot at the theater, with "people even stopping to take pictures with it." A hand-drawn sketch meant only as a quick fix ended up making the theater more memorable than the very official poster it was standing in for.
