The hype is pretty high for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the long-awaited animated epic that is set to arrive in theaters later this year. As the recently-released second trailer for the film showed, the project will be featuring a slew of new and returning Spider-People — including Gwen Stacy / Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld). The official social media account for Across the Spider-Verse recently shared a new look at Gwen for the film, promising that they’re “getting into the swing of the new year.”
Getting into the swing of the new year. #SpiderVerse pic.twitter.com/HsMlk1mfhH
— Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (@SpiderVerse) January 2, 2023
What is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse about?
In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) goes on an adventure across the multiverse with Gwen Stacy and a new team of Spider-People who must face a powerful villain. Also returning from the first film are Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara / Spider-Man 2099, and Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man. Issa Rae has also joined the cast as Jessica Drew / Spider-Woman. Across the Spider-Verse is directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, with a script from Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham.
“This is a situation where the movie was so ambitious, it was trying to do so many groundbreaking things in its visual style, in its storytelling style, in its cinematic style.” Miller previously explained to ComicBook.com. “Everything about it … The sound mix was probably going to be groundbreaking, so it required a lot of work. Every version of these movies is a collaboration of hundreds of filmmakers working together, and in the best versions people are contributing their creative ideas, and the people, the directors, and the producers are the ones that get to decide which of the things fit the road that you’re going down.”
Why is Spider-Verse 2 split into two movies?
As senior character animator Ere Santos teased in an interview last year, the ambition of the original condensed version of the two sequels is on par with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s culmination, Avengers: Endgame.
“[We were asking] ‘Wait, so this is what a two-and-a-half-hour movie?'” Santos explained. “This is a really large story that they’re telling. And with all the arcs that they wanted to put in, we were just thinking this was going to be an intense, quick, fast-paced, high-energy movie. But it would have been good. It would have been like, what they were planning was gonna be like Endgame-esque stuff. Like it was huge. And what they’re planning is still huge. But then kind of spreading it out and into two gives it that breathing room we all felt that it really needed to kind of go, ‘Okay, what do you what do we need to set up in the second movie? And how can we resolve it in the third movie? Or not?’ I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”
What do you think of this new look at Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be released on June 2nd. Its sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part II, will be released on March 29, 2024.