Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to Into the Spider-Verse, was originally even bigger in scale – even comparable to Avengers: Endgame.
Across the Spider-Verse is one of the most – if not the most – anticipated superhero movie of 2023, seeing the return of Miles Morales, Peter B. Parker, and Spider-Gwen in a new, chaotic multiverse adventure.
The original 2018 movie was a smash hit, going on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and continually hailed as the best Spider-Man movie ever made.
However, while the first film introduced a few Spidey variants, such as Spider-Man Noir and Peter Porker, the sequel is set to be even more epic and jam-packed with characters.
Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse was once like “Endgame”
Ere Santos, the lead character animator on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, spoke to The Direct about the movie’s scope and how it’s actually been scaled down compared to the original pitch.
“[We were asking] ‘Wait, so this is what a two-and-a-half-hour movie?’ This is a really large story that they’re telling,” he explained.
#SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse was originally a '2.5 hour' Endgame-like movie 🕸(via @TheDirect) pic.twitter.com/APJMFhuupM
— ScreenTime (@screentime) December 23, 2022
“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.
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“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.”
Across the Spider-Verse originally had a “Part One” subtitle, but it was taken away, with the next movie renamed Beyond the Spider-Verse.
“It was a really ambitious movie, and at the beginning, it was insanely ambitious, versus what it is now. It’s still super ambitious, but it was like trying to fit two movies into one essentially. But now things can breathe a little bit more,” Santos added.
The official synopsis for the movie reads: “Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar-winning Spider-Verse saga, an epic adventure that will transport Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man across the Multiverse to join forces with Gwen Stacy and a new team of Spider-People to face off with a villain more powerful than anything they have ever encountered.”
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into cinemas on June 2, 2023. Find out more about the movie here.