Set photos capturing the filming of Marvel’s Punisher Special Presentation appear to confirm that armed vigilante Frank Castle is facing his next major adversary.
Following his recent return in Daredevil: Born Again, Jon Bernthal’s popular portrayal of Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, will star in a standalone Special Presentation arriving on Disney+ next year.
While plot details for the Punisher’s comeback remain under wraps, location shooting in New York seems to have revealed a key scene where Castle meets a memorable villain from Marvel comics.
Leaked images show Castle facing off against a dark-haired woman in a wheelchair — instantly recognizable to comic fans as Isabella Carmela Magdalena “Ma” Gnucci, a mafia boss seeking vengeance for the murder of her sons by Castle.
Gnucci is a memorable villain whose story fits perfectly with the Punisher’s gritty tone. In the comics, her quest for revenge persists even after she is mauled by polar bears — released by Castle at New York City Zoo — and left as a quadriplegic.
These photos depict Gnucci already seated in a wheelchair, pointing her finger at Castle during their meeting in a playground. Without spoiling the comic book outcome for those who might assume Castle goes easy on the mob boss: you don’t know Frank.
New BTS look at ‘THE PUNISHER’.
Possible first look at Ma Gnucci. pic.twitter.com/2gBk1ZzWZm
— Daredevil Shots (@_DaredevilShots) July 23, 2025
Next year promises to be busy for the Punisher, who is also set to appear on the big screen alongside Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It remains to be seen how the cheerful Holland will react to the gun-toting vigilante, though reports suggest the pair will team up once again to take down the Hulk.
“When Punisher is in the Spider-Man movie, it’ll be a different tonality,” Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “We are seeing for the first time in the Tom Holland Spider-Man stories him being a proper Spider-Man. Him being by himself, dedicated to saving the city, and dealing with, for lack of better terms, street-level crime, as opposed to world-ending events.
So when you do that, you say, okay, who are the other street-level characters that we’ve never seen him interact with? And of course, I love that The Punisher started in a Spider-Man comic.”
A release date for Frank’s solo Special Presentation has not yet been announced. Meanwhile, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is scheduled to hit theaters on July 31, 2026.
