With the live-action Spider-Man: No Way Home less than a fortnight away from swinging into theaters—and with demand to be there opening night so great that tickets are going for preposterous sums on the resale market—there’s no better time to chum the waters and remind fans that there’s a lot more crawling our way.
As such, a “first look” at the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (note the change in preposition!), was unveiled at the Comic Con Experience Brazil (CCXP) in São Paulo on Saturday. The glimpse at the second film in the animated series opens with Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) having a cute/awkward conversation with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) after she materializes from her reality into the middle of his messy (and not-very-adult) room.
Soon thereafter they blast into a realm of highly stylized illustration (as is the norm for this Academy Award-winning series) with a hodgepodge of musical influences underneath Miles’s shrieks. In addition to the typical techno beats of a block-rockin’ order, there are Indian tabla rhythms and the drone of a tanpura. (There is also some Hindi text on a sign that flies by at rapid speed, suggesting that the lead character from the Spider-Man: India comic, Pavitr Prabhakar, might make an appearance, which is great if you know just how beloved Spider-Man is in India.)
While it’s still unknown which characters from (forgive me) across the spider-verse will appear, we do get a vision of one biggie. As he is careening through the air, Miles crashes into Spider-Man 2099, a futuristic take on the character, who was voiced by Oscar Isaac as a post-credits surprise in the last movie.
But if you want to talk surprises, the biggest one comes at the end of the clip, when the full title of this next movie is revealed: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One). (If you are a precise title stickler, those parenthesis come direct from the Sony press site. It may not be on the screen in the video itself, but maybe that’s just more evidence of how Spider-Man is all about variations!)
On the one hand, it’s a bit of a “no duh!” that this popular series will, at the least, be a trilogy. But the “part one”-ness of it all suggests that what’s coming will be “one big story.” Also, it was quickly confirmed that this film and the next one are being made simultaneously, which suggests a shorter wait time for the conclusion.
If you are a casual fan who is perplexed by all these different spider-men (not to get confused with Spiders-Man) well, it may just get worse for you. The upcoming live action movie No Way Home starring Tom Holland, in which Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange introduces the young superhero to the concept of the multiverse, is practically buckling under the weight of rumors that previous on-screen iterations of the character played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will appear. Just go with it.
Meanwhile, Sony Animation is taking the opportunity to build-up some cinematic cross-pollination of their own. If you look closely on the shelf in Miles’s room, you’ll see the toy moose from The Mitchells vs. the Machines. It just so happens that Mitchells’s co-producers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, are also co-writers and producers on Spider-Verse.
Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters December 17, 2021. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hits theaters October 7, 2022. The zillions (to use a technical term) of Spider-Man comics that have been published since the character’s first appearance in 1962 are available at a fine comics retailers near you.
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