Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Directors Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, and Bob Persichetti at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con

Following the November 2014 hacking of Sony's computers, emails between then-Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal and president Doug Belgrad were released, saying that Sony was planning to "rejuvenate" the Spider-Man franchise by developing an animated comedy film with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.[40] During her time as Sony's co-chairman, Pascal approached Lord and Miller about making an animated Spider-Man movie, to which Lord and Miller agreed with the condition that they could adapt Dan Slott's 2014 "Spider-Verse" comic book storyline and star Miles Morales as the protagonist.[41] Sony executives were set to talk about the project further in a discussion regarding several Spider-Man spin-off films at a summit in January 2015.[40] At the 2015 CinemaCon in April, Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman announced that the animated Spider-Man film had a July 20, 2018, release date, and would be produced by Lord and Miller, Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Pascal, with Lord and Miller also writing a treatment for the film. Rothman said that it would "co-exist" with the live-action Spider-Man films; though Sony soon stated that the film would "exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe,"[42] as it is set in an alternate universe from those films, without the version of Spider-Man as seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[43]

That December, Sony moved the film's release date to December 21, 2018.[44] By June 2016, Lord had written a script for the film, and the studio chose Bob Persichetti to direct.[45] Miller said the film would feel different from previous Spider-Man films, and would "stand on its own as a unique film-going experience."[46] It was also "rumored" to focus on the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man,[45][46] which Sony confirmed at a presentation for its upcoming animated films in January 2017. Peter Ramsey had joined the film as a co-director by that point.[47] The next month, Alex Hirsch was named as a story contributor and Christina Steinberg replaced Tolmach as a producer; she previously collaborated with Ramsey on Rise of the Guardians (2012) while at DreamWorks Animation.[9][48] In April 2017, the release date was pushed up one week from December 21, 2018, to December 14, 2018.[49] Lord and Miller announced the film's full title in December and said that multiple Spider-Men would appear in the film. By then, Rodney Rothman, who had previously co-written the screenplay for Lord and Miller's 22 Jump Street (2014), was added as a co-director.[50]

The script is credited to Lord and Rothman from a story by Lord, making it the first film Lord had written without Miller.[51] As six Spider-Man films had been made already, the team agreed they first needed to decide why this one needed to be made; their answer was to tell the story of Morales, who had yet to appear in a film.[6] Brian Michael Bendis, co-creator of Miles Morales, consulted on the film adaptation.[52] The first full cut of animatics and storyboards for the film was over two hours long, which is uncommon for animated films. The directors attributed this mostly to Lord and Miller, and their approach of adding as many elements to the film as they could at the outset, with the intention of seeing what it could "handle"; and then shaping the film from there. They said that the final runtime would be between 90 and 120 minutes, the standard length of an animated film. They added that a balance would have to be found between the expectations of an animated film that will have a large audience of children, and the requirements of the story. The directors felt the plot was similar to the live-action Spider-Man films, especially due to the large number of characters in the film.[6] One year prior to its release, Lord and Rothman opted to rewrite the story as they had to "figure out how to reshape sequences we had already boarded and animated and fold them in with new stuff". They also added that they had substantially rewritten the third act.[53]

The film was originally set to feature a romance between Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen.[54] While the idea was scrapped, Spider-Gwen was still featured prominently in the film, mostly due to the efforts of producer Christina Steinberg.[54] By August 2018, the directors had considered what a potential post-credits scene for the film could be, given that audiences have come to expect them from Marvel films.[6] At one point the writers wished to include a post-credits scene with cameos by all three live-action Spider-Man actors, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland, but this was canceled as Sony felt such a moment at the time would cause confusion and be too risky.[55] Holland recalled the scene was intended to include him as a passerby at a train station who says, "Hey, kid!" to Miles.[56]

Shameik Moore was cast as Miles Morales in April 2017, along with Liev Schreiber as the film's then-unspecified main villain.[8] A month later, Mahershala Ali and Brian Tyree Henry joined the cast as Morales's uncle Aaron Davis and father Jefferson Davis, respectively.[14] That December, Lord and Miller said that an adult Peter Parker / Spider-Man would appear in the film as a mentor to Morales.[57] Maguire, who played Spider-Man in the Sam Raimi films, was initially considered to be cast as this version of Spider-Man, but the idea was dropped so as not to confuse the audience with the concept of the "Spider-Verse."[58] Jake Johnson was ultimately cast in the role in April 2018.[11] It was also announced that the characters Green Goblin, Kingpin, and Prowler would also appear, with their designs based on the Ultimate Marvel comic series.[59]

In June 2018, Sony confirmed further casting, including Schreiber playing Kingpin, Hailee Steinfeld as Spider-Gwen, Luna Lauren Vélez as Morales's mother Rio, and Lily Tomlin as Parker's Aunt May.[13] A month later, Nicolas Cage (who was considered for the role of Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man film),[60][61] John Mulaney and Kimiko Glenn were announced as the voices of Spider-Man Noir,[19] Spider-Ham and Peni Parker, respectively.[16] Chris Pine as the Peter Parker of Miles' universe and Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099 were announced in November 2018.[62][30] Pine was also involved in Ramsey's previous film, Rise of the Guardians. Lord and Miller explained that the alternate Spider-Man characters were chosen based on the comics they had read, as well as research they conducted on Marvel Comics, with the intention of including actual characters from the comics who "were as diverse as possible."[10]

Daniel Pemberton was announced as the film's composer in July 2018.[63] A full soundtrack album was released by Republic Records on December 14, the day of the film's release, and was curated to represent what a teen like Miles Morales would listen to.[64] Artists on the soundtrack include Jaden Smith, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Post Malone, Ty Dolla Sign, Juice Wrld, Swae Lee, Ski Mask the Slump God, Vince Staples, Thutmose, and the late XXXTentacion, who was marketed as a special guest on the Lil Wayne and Ty Dolla Sign song "Scared of the Dark". A separate album containing Pemberton's score was released by Sony Classical Records on December 17.[65] On December 20, Sony Pictures Animation announced an extended play album, A Very Spidey Christmas, based on a throwaway joke at the beginning of the film and consisting of five Christmas songs performed by cast members Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, and Chris Pine. The EP was released on digital platforms the next day.[66][67]

Elliphant recorded the song "To the End" for the film, where it served as the introduction music for Spider-Woman. The song was released as a single in January 2019.[68]

The film's animation was handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks in Vancouver, who had handled nearly all of Sony Pictures Animation's prior films, as well as visual effects for all prior Spider-Man films. According to Lord and Miller, they wanted the film to feel like the viewer had "walked inside a comic book," and were excited about telling the story in a way they believed the live action films could not.[57] Persichetti concurred, feeling that animation was the best medium to honor the comics, allowing the production team to adapt 70-year-old comic art techniques for the film's visual language.[6] It took around a year for two animators to create 10 seconds of footage that reflected the producers' vision; the animation work was created from there.[69] During initial development, the directors worked with a single animator, Alberto Mielgo, to establish the film's look.[70] Although Mielgo was let go by Sony before the movie had been significantly produced due to artistic differences,[71] this number eventually grew to 60 animators during production. It became clear that they could not complete the film on time, so the crew was expanded further. The number had reached 142 animators by August 2018 and at one point to 177 animators,[72] the largest animation crew that Sony Pictures Imageworks had ever used for a film. Animation work was completed in October 2018.[6]

The CGI animation for the film was combined with "line work and painting and dots and all sorts of comic book techniques," to make it look like it was created by hand, which was described as "a living painting."[57] This was achieved by artists taking rendered frames from the CGI animators and working on top of them in 2D, with the goal of making every frame of the film "look like a comic panel."[73][74] Lord described this style of animation as "totally revolutionary,"[9] and explained that the design combines the in-house style of Sony Pictures Animation with the "flavor" of comic artists such as Sara Pichelli (who co-created Miles Morales) and Robbi Rodriguez.[9][10] The film's tone and visual style also drew influence from Japanese anime and manga works such as Hayao Miyazaki films and Akira (1988).[75]

To make the film feel more like a comic book, it was animated without motion blur, instead using an older technique of 2D animation called motion smearing, as seen in the 1942 Looney Tunes short The Dover Boys. The frame rate varied between 24 images (animating on ones) and 12 images (animating on twos) per second, the latter case using the same image twice. The producers described the effect as making the animation "crunchy." Sometimes, the two frame rates would be used in the same scene, such as when Miles and Peter Parker swing through the forest; Miles was animated at 12 frames to show his inexperience while Peter was animated at 24 frame to give him smoother movement.[76] With characters being held up for one, two and three frames, it made their motion look jittery, which was named stepped animation.[77] To create depth of field, another technique was used: deliberately misaligned colors, as if the colors had been slightly misprinted, as happens with ink printing in real comics. Other methods to make the film look more like a comic were halftones and Ben-Day dots to create colors, tones and gradients, crisscrossed lines to create texture and shadows, Kirby Krackle to create the illusion of energy, motion lines to show movement, and onomatopoeia, words on the image, to represent sounds and motion.[76]

Rather than using animation principles like squash and stretch, the animators came up with substitute versions, "so that in texture and feel it felt different, but it still achieved the same goal—to either feel weight or anticipation or impact or things like that."[78] Different comic styles were emulated throughout the film for the different characters, with Spider-Gwen's animation based on the designs in her comics, Spider-Man Noir having a black-and-white color scheme, Spider-Ham being designed as "cartoony" as possible,[79] and Peni Parker being based on Japanese anime and manga such as Sailor Moon.[75] Former Disney concept artist Shiyoon Kim served as overall character designer,[79] while Craig Kellman designed the exaggerated look for Spider-Ham.[74] Justin K. Thompson served as production designer after having done so on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films for Lord, Miller, and Sony Pictures Animation.[80] Danny Dimian, who had worked on both the 2002 Spider-Man film and the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs film while at Imageworks, served as visual effects supervisor for the film. He compared the approach the company took with Spider-Verse to the 2000 film Hollow Man.[81] Animation co-director Patrick O'Keefe said that committing fully to each Spider's unique art style was like "making five movies."[74] In-universe comic-books in the film were designed as a combination of the artwork of Steve Ditko and John Romita Jr.[10] Chris Pine's Peter Parker's cover was designed by Keith Pollard while Erik Larsen designed the cover for Jake Johnson's Peter Parker, and Miles Morales's co-creator Sara Pichelli also contributed art for the film.[82]

The directors all felt that the film would be one of the few that audiences actually "need" to watch in 3D, due to the immersive nature of the animated world created, and the way that the hand-drawn animation elements designed specifically for the film create a unique experience; Persichetti described the experience as a combination of the effects of an old-fashioned hand-drawn multiplane camera and a modern virtual reality environment.[6] One scene in Aaron Davis's apartment includes an image of Donald Glover in the background, which references Glover's part in fan campaigns to see a non-white version of Spider-Man, as well as a scene from the Community episode "Anthropology 101" where Glover's character of Troy Barnes wakes up in Spider-Man pajamas.[10] Glover also portrayed Aaron Davis in Spider-Man: Homecoming and voiced Miles in the Ultimate Spider-Man television series.[83]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was released by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label on December 14, 2018.[49][93] In April 2015, Sony had made its first official announcement that an animated Spider-Man film was in development, with a release date scheduled for July 20, 2018.[5] It is the first animated Spider-Man feature film, and is independent of the timelines of other Spider-Man universe films.[5] At the end of 2015, the release date was changed to December 21, 2018, and was moved up by one week two years later.[42][44][49] Sony premiered the film at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2018, and included tributes to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.[94][4]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was released on digital download by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on February 26, 2019, with Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, and DVD releases following on March 19.[95] All releases were accompanied by a short film featuring Spider-Ham entitled Caught in a Ham.[96] An extended cut called the Alt-Universe Cut, featuring 30 minutes of unreleased footage, including some scenes with Miles' roommate, Ganke, and a deleted cameo with Tom Cruise and James Cameron, was also featured on its home video release.[97] Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was also released in Blu-ray 3D format in several regions, outside of the United States and United Kingdom, on April 10, 2019.[98]

In the United Kingdom, it was aired on Sky Cinema Premiere in 2019. It drew 1.1 million viewers, making it the year's eighth most-watched film on pay TV channels.[99]

In April 2021, Sony signed a deal with Disney giving them access to their legacy content, including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequels, to stream on Disney+ and Hulu and appear on Disney's linear television networks. Disney's access to Sony's titles would come following their availability on Netflix. Into the Spider-Verse had previously been available on Starz and FX.[100][101] The film became available on Disney+ in the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan on June 17, 2022, and on September 9, 2022, in Ireland, Latin America and Europe.[102]

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse grossed $190.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $194.0 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $384.3 million, against a production budget of $90 million.[3] On January 31, 2019, the film surpassed Hotel Transylvania 2 to become Sony Pictures Animation's highest-grossing film domestically, unadjusted for inflation.[103]

In the United States and Canada, Into the Spider-Verse was released on the same weekend as Mortal Engines and The Mule, and was projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,813 theaters in its opening weekend.[93] It made $12.6 million on its first day, including $3.5 million from Thursday night previews, and went on to debut to $35.4 million, finishing first at the box office and marking the best ever December opening for an animated film.[104] The film made $16.7 million in its second weekend, finishing fourth, behind newcomers Aquaman, Bumblebee and Mary Poppins Returns, and then $18.3 million in its third weekend, finishing fourth again.[105][106] In its fifth weekend the film made $13 million, finishing in fourth for a third straight week.[107] On March 1–3, the weekend following its Best Animated Picture win at the Academy Awards, the film was added to 1,661 theaters (for a total of 2,104) and made $2.1 million, marking a 138% increase from the week before.[108]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 402 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse matches bold storytelling with striking animation for a purely enjoyable adventure with heart, humor, and plenty of superhero action."[109] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on reviews from 50 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[110] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave it a 90% overall positive score, an 80% "definite recommend," and a 5 star rating.[104]

David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a "B+" and called it "hilarious and ultimately even poignant," writing, "An eye-popping and irreverent animated experience from the marvelous comic minds who brought you 21 Jump Street... Into the Spider-Verse is somehow both the nerdiest and most inviting superhero film in a long time; every single frame oozes with fan service."[111] Oliver Jones of The New York Observer gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and wrote, "The greatest triumph and biggest surprise of the film is that it is an LSD freak-out on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey."[112] Johnny Oleksinski of The New York Post gave the film a 3.5 rating out of 4, hailing it as "the best stand-alone film to feature the iconic character so far," and praising Miles' characterization as "more fleshed out than the usual Marvel heroes."[113] Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com praised the film's atmosphere and visual effects, adding that it "has a wonderfully trippy, dreamlike quality about it."[114] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "the freshest and most stimulating aspect of the film is the visual style, which unites the expected Marvel mix of 'universes' (it used to be assumed there was only one universe in creation) with animation that looks both computer-driven and hand-drawn, boasts futuristic as well as funky urban elements, moves the 'camera' a lot and brings together a melting pot of mostly amusing new characters."[115]

William Bibbiani of The Wrap felt the film "represents some of the best superhero storytelling on the market," and that it "captures the sprawling interconnectivity of comic-book universes in a way that no other feature film has," calling it the best Spider-Man film since Spider-Man 2.[116] Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times said that "What distinguishes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in the end is that it takes its mission seriously, even when it's being transparently silly."[117] David Sims of The Atlantic said that the film "somehow, through sheer creative gumption, does something new in the superhero genre," particularly praising the use of comic book's "visual language" as well as the characters' dynamic, and felt that the "anarchic fingerprints" of producers Lord and Miller were "all over the movie."[118] Katie Walsh of Tribune News Service said that the film is "unlike any other superhero or animated film that has come before," comparing the animation to "watching a comic book come to life," and feeling that the film "firmly exists in a post-Deadpool environment, where it seems the only fresh way into a century-old superhero is to skewer the tropes, make fun of the merchandising and acknowledge the cultural significance of it all in a cheeky and self-reflective manner." She added that Lord, who wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay, was "the key to the balance of self-aware and sweet" present in the film.[119]

Following the "incredible buzz" of Into the Spider-Verse, Sony led to the development on a sequel.[73] Its story was split into two films to address the follow-up's excessive length.[149] Into the Spider-Verse was followed by Across the Spider-Verse, released on June 2, 2023,[150] after being delayed twice from an original 2022 date.[151] The film surpassed the box-office take of Into the Spider-Verse,[152] and received a similarly positive critical and audience response.[153] The third film, Beyond the Spider-Verse, is in production.[154]

Spider-Women, a spin-off film focusing on three generations of female Spider-related characters,[155] will include Spider-Gwen and feature Jessica Drew / Spider-Woman and Cindy Moon / Silk.[54] The film has Bek Smith as screenwriter and Lauren Montgomery was in talks to direct.[54][73][155]

John Mulaney also expressed interest in a potential spin-off film starring Spider-Ham, suggesting its plot as a "Watergate-like story" along the lines of The Post or All the President's Men while focusing on his character's career as a reporter.[156]

Following the release of Into the Spider-Verse, the studio discussed the possibility of television series featuring the characters. Lord and Miller both expressed interest in seeing a series of shorts starring Spider-Ham,[157] while Sony was announced to be developing animated spin-off TV series focusing on various characters.[158]

By April 2019, Lord and Miller signed a five-year deal with Sony Pictures Television to create animated Marvel television series alongside Sony Pictures Animation, including a possible TV series based on Into the Spider-Verse.[159] Discussing these series in August, Miller could not update where or when the series would be released but said there would be several live-action series and that they would each be "their own unique experience" while still being related to each other.[160]