SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Featuring a Spectacular new art style, and a multi - verse of Spider-Men, Women and, er, S wine, Spider-Man: into the Spider-V er Se is taking Marvel’ s friendly neighbourhood wall crawler in audacious new directions. Total Film speaks to Phil Lord and Ch
There’s a new Spidey (well, many new Spideys) in town.
The possibilities of what an animated movie could look like are endless,” says Chris Miller. He’s speaking to Total Film from a position of authority. Along with partner-incrime Phil Lord, the pair busted modern American animation out of its cuddly, Pixar-aping cul-de-sac with The Lego Movie. And they’re doing it again with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, a wildly ambitious animated Spider-Movie that blends dozens of art styles inspired by everything from Japanese anime to the ’toons of Tex Avery.
But that’s not where the film’s ambitions end. In a move that makes Infinity War look like My First Superhero Crossover, Spider-Verse isn’t just bringing heroes together from across the galaxy – alt-universe Spider-Folk are teaming up from across dimensions. With Lord promising “more [Easter eggs] than necessary. Almost more than we could afford” – among them a radically redesigned rogues’ gallery of Spidey villains including the Scorpion, Green Goblin and Prowler – the film necessitated three directors (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman) on top of hands-on producers Lord and Miller. “Sony was very supportive of trying to push the envelope,” says Miller. “Half of it was just us not telling them how far we were going to push it!”
So much work was involved in defining the film’s amazing new look that it took a year of R&D to create just 10 seconds of representative footage. But armed with this snippet, a sensational voice cast signed up, including Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Liev Schreiber, Brian Tyree Henry and Mahershala Ali.
But most exciting of all for Spidey die-hards, Into The Spider-Verse marks the big-screen debut of fan-favourite mixed-race Spider-Man Miles Morales. “He’s the central character of the movie, he drives all of our creative decisions,” says co-director Rodney Rothman. “There’s a lot of stuff in the movie, but it’s all helping us tell the best Miles Morales story possible.”