Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
File:Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse poster.jpeg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bob Persichetti Peter Ramsey Rodney Rothman
Screenplay by	Phil Lord Rodney Rothman
Story by	Phil Lord
Produced by	Avi Arad Amy Pascal Phil Lord Christopher Miller Christina Steinberg
Starring	Shameik Moore Jake Johnson Hailee Steinfeld Mahershala Ali Brian Tyree Henry Lily Tomlin Luna Lauren Velez John Mulaney Nicolas Cage Liev Schreiber
Music by	Daniel Pemberton
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Releasing
Release dates	December 1, 2018 (2018-12-01) (Regency Village Theater) December 14, 2018 (2018-12-14) (United States)
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$90 million

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a 2018 American computer-animated superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Miles Morales / Spider-Man, produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation in association with Marvel, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is set in a shared multiverse called the "Spider-Verse", which features different alternate universes. The film was directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman from a screenplay by Phil Lord and Rothman, and stars Shameik Moore as Morales, alongside Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, John Mulaney, Nicolas Cage, and Liev Schreiber. In the film, Morales becomes one of many Spider-Men.

Plans for an animated Spider-Man film to be developed by Lord and Christopher Miller were first revealed in 2014, and officially announced in April 2015. Persichetti, Ramsey, and Rothman joined over the next two years, with Moore and Schreiber cast in April 2017. Lord and Miller wanted the film to have its own unique style, combining the in-house computer animation of Sony Pictures Imageworks with traditional hand-drawn comic book techniques inspired by the work of Miles Morales's co-creator Sara Pichelli. Completing the animation for the film required up to 140 animators, the largest crew ever used by Sony Pictures Animation for a film.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse held its world premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2018, and was released in the United States on December 14, 2018. The film received universal acclaim from critics for its innovative animation, voice acting, characters, story, and humor, and received Best Animated Feature nominations at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 24th Critics' Choice Awards. A sequel and several spin-offs are in development.

Plot

Miles Morales, a teenager who admires Spider-Man, struggles to adjust to his new elite boarding school and live up to the expectations of his parents, nurse Rio Morales and police officer Jefferson Davis, who views Spider-Man as a menace. After developing a crush on his classmate Wanda, Miles seeks his uncle Aaron Davis for advice. Aaron encourages Miles’ passion for graffiti and leads him to an abandoned subway station where Miles can draw.

While there, Miles is bitten by a genetically modified spider, and develops spider-like abilities. Unable to contact Aaron, he returns to the station, and accidentally finds a secret laboratory where notorious crime lord Wilson Fisk has built a particle accelerator to access parallel universes and reconnect with alternative versions of his wife and son who died in a car accident. Spider-Man arrives to disable the accelerator and fights the monstrous Green Goblin and Fisk’s mysterious enforcer Prowler. During the melee, Spider-Man meets Miles and sensing they are alike, offers to train him, but is then wounded when the accelerator malfunctions. Spider-Man gives Miles a device to disable the accelerator, and Miles escapes, while Spider-Man is brutally killed by Fisk.

Inspired by Spider-Man’s sacrifice, Miles attempts to fight crime as well, but accidentally damages the device while trying to swing. Miles is later approached by Peter B. Parker, an older, jaded Spider-Man from another dimension who has been brought into Miles’ world by the accelerator. Peter is separated from his wife Mary Jane Watson and needs to return home fast or he will die, so he begrudgingly agrees to train Miles in exchange for Miles’ help to steal data about how to repair the device from Fisk's research facility. They are confronted by Fisk’s scientist assistant Olivia Octavius and rescued by Gwen Stacy, another dimension-displaced heroine who had been masquerading as Wanda. She leads Peter and Miles to the house of May Parker who is sheltering more lost Spider-Men including Spider-Noir, Spider-Ham and Peni Parker and SP//dr. While Peni repairs the device, Peter unsuccessfully attempts to teach Miles how to control his powers. Pressure from the group causes Miles to retreat to Aaron's apartment, where he discovers that Aaron is Prowler and narrowly escapes from him. Miles returns to May's house to inform the group of his discovery, but they are located by Prowler, Octavius, Scorpion and Tombstone, leading to a brawl. Aaron corners Miles, but refuses to kill him when he learns Miles is the new Spider-Man. Fisk kills Prowler and Jefferson mistakes the new Spider-Man for Aaron’s killer.

As they prepare to face Fisk, the Spider-Men choose to leave Miles behind due to his inexperience, webbing him up at his dorm room. Jefferson arrives to tell Miles about Aaron’s death and assumes Miles does not want to speak to him, apologizing for his mistakes and reassuring Miles that he believes in him. Uplifted, Miles escapes and visits May, who provides him with a new uniform, before joining the fight against Octavius and Scorpion, who are ultimately defeated. Miles operates the device and sends the Spider-Men back home, sharing a moment with Gwen just before Fisk arrives. Miles and Fisk fight throughout the accelerator, attracting Jefferson’s attention. Reaching the scene, Jefferson realizes that Spider-Man is not the enemy and encourages him, giving Miles the necessary motivation to knock Fisk unconscious with his powerful “venom blast” and destroy the accelerator. As the authorities arrest Fisk and his enforcers, Jefferson recognizes Spider-Man as a hero, and Miles embraces the powers and responsibilities of his new life. Gwen later finds a way to contact Miles from her home universe so they can maintain their friendship, while Peter readies to earn back Mary Jane and the people’s respect.

In a post-credits scene in the year 2099, Miguel O’Hara learns about the crisis and develops his own dimension-hopping device to intervene. O’Hara decides to return to the beginning, but ends up getting into an argument with that universe’s Spider-Man.

Cast

• Shameik Moore as Miles Morales / Spider-Man: Template:Cast list break
• Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man: Template:Cast list break
• Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman: Template:Cast list break
• Mahershala Ali as Aaron Davis / Prowler: Template:Cast list break
• Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis-Morales: Template:Cast list break
• Lily Tomlin as May Parker: Template:Cast list break
• Luna Lauren Velez as Rio Morales: Template:Cast list break
• John Mulaney as Peter Porker / Spider-Ham: Template:Cast list break
• Nicolas Cage as Spider-Noir: Template:Cast list break
• Liev Schreiber as Wilson Fisk / Kingpin: Template:Cast list break

Other Spider-Men in the film include Kimiko Glenn as Peni Parker, a young Japanese girl from an anime-like universe who co-pilots the biomechanical suit SP//dr with a radioactive spider, and Chris Pine as the Spider-Man of Miles' universe, whose death inspires Miles to become Spider-Man. This version of Parker was intended to be "as competent a Spider-Man as possible", and combines elements from previous Spider-Man portrayals (including Tobey Maguire's from the Spider-Man films, Andrew Garfield's from the Amazing Spider-Man films, and Tom Holland's from the Marvel Cinematic Universe) but with slight differences to indicate that this is an alternate universe from those. Oscar Isaac has a cameo role in the post-credits scene as Miguel O'Hara / Spider-Man 2099, an alternative version of Spider-Man from a futuristic universe established at the end of the 21st century. Greta Lee voices his A.I. assistant Lyla.

Additional voices for the film include Kathryn Hahn as Olivia Octavius / Doctor Octopus, Zoë Kravitz as Mary Jane Watson, Lake Bell as Vanessa Fisk, and Jorma Taccone as Green Goblin. Marvin "Krondon" Jones III voices Lonnie Lincoln, while Joaquín Cosio voices the Scorpion. Post Malone, who contributed to the film's soundtrack, voices a bystander in Brooklyn. Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee has a posthumous cameo in the film, in which he gives the Spider-Man costume to Morales. It was important to Lord and Miller to give Lee a bigger moment in the film rather than just a passing cameo because they felt he was "so integral to the spirit of this movie". They described the role as "extra meaningful" following Lee's death in November 2018.

Production

Development

Following the November 2014 hacking of Sony's computers, emails between Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal and president Doug Belgrad were released, stating that Sony was planning to "rejuvenate" the Spider-Man franchise by developing an animated comedy film with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Sony executives were set to discuss the project further in a discussion regarding several Spider-Man spin-off films at a summit in January 2015. 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", as it is set in an alternate universe from those films without the version of Spider-Man as seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

That December, Sony moved the film's release date to December 21, 2018. By June 2016, Lord had written a script for the film, and Bob Persichetti was set to direct. Miller said the film would feel different from previous Spider-Man films, and "will stand on its own as a unique filmgoing experience." It had also been rumored to focus on the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, which Sony confirmed at a presentation for its upcoming animated films in January 2017. Peter Ramsey was co-directing the film by that point. The next month, Alex Hirsch was revealed to have contributed to the film's story along with Lord and Miller, and Christina Steinberg was said to have replaced Tolmach as a producer on the film. In April 2017, the film's release date was pushed up one week from December 21, 2018, to December 14, 2018. Lord and Miller announced in December that the film was titled Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and revealed that multiple Spider-Men would appear in the film. By then, Rodney Rothman was also co-directing the film.

Writing

The film's script is credited to Lord and Rothman from a story by Lord, making the first film where Christopher Miller didn't collaborate on a screenplay with Lord. Persichetti noted that there had been several Spider-Man films made already, so the first step was to decide why this film needed to be made, and the answer for the creative team was to tell the new and unique story of Miles Morales, who had yet to be featured in any film. Brian Michael Bendis, the co-creator of Miles Morales, consulted on the film adaptation. The first full cut of animatics and storyboards for the film was over two-hours long, which is uncommon for animated films, and 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 will be between that and 90 minutes, the standard length of an animated film, with a balance having to be found between the expectations of an animated film that will have a large child-based audience and the requirements of the story which the directors felt was similar to the live-action Spider-Man films especially due to the large number of characters in the film.

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.

Casting

Shameik Moore was cast as Morales in April 2017, along with Liev Schreiber as the film's unspecified main villain. A month later, Mahershala Ali and Brian Tyree Henry joined the cast as Morales's uncle Aaron Davis and father Jefferson Davis, respectively. That December, Lord and Miller revealed that an adult Peter Parker / Spider-Man would appear in the film, as a mentor to Morales, and Jake Johnson was announced as cast in the role in April 2018. At that time, it was revealed that the characters Green Goblin, Kingpin, and Prowler would also be appearing in the film, with their designs based on the Ultimate Marvel comic series.

In June 2018, Sony confirmed the full cast for the film, with Schreiber revealed to be voicing Kingpin. Announced as joining the cast then were Hailee Steinfeld as Spider-Gwen, Luna Lauren Velez as Morales's mother Rio, and Lily Tomlin as Parker's Aunt May. A month later, Nicolas Cage was revealed to be voicing the character Spider-Man Noir, and John Mulaney and Kimiko Glenn were announced as voicing Spider-Ham and Peni Parker, respectively. The casting of Chris Pine as the Peter Parker of Miles' universe and Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099 were revealed in November 2018. Lord and Miller explained that the alternate Spider-Man characters were chosen based on the comics they had read as well as research done on the Marvel Wiki, with the intention of including actual character from the comics who "were as diverse as possible".

Animation and design

Lord and Miller wanted the film to feel like "you walked inside a comic book", and were excited to tell the story in a way that the live-action films could not. Persichetti concurred, feeling that animation was the best medium with which to honor the style of the comics, allowing the production team to adapt 70-year-old techniques seen in comic artwork into the film's visual language. It took around a year for the production team to create 10 seconds of footage that they were happy with, and then animation work on the film developed from there. During the initial development, the directors worked with a single animator to establish the look of the film. This number eventually grew to 60 animators during production, but it became clear that this would not be enough to complete the film on time and so the crew was expanded further. The number had reached 142 animators by August 2018, the largest animation crew that Sony Pictures Imageworks had ever used for a film. Animation work was set to be completed in October 2018.

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". 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". Lord described this style of animation as "totally revolutionary", 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. 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, and Spider-Ham being designed as "cartoony" as possible. Craig Kellman designed the exaggerated look for the Spider-Ham, while Justin K. Thompson served as overall production designer after doing so on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs films for Lord and Miller. Animation co-director Patrick O'Keefe said that committing fully to each Spider's unique art style was like "making five movies". In-universe comic books featured in the film were designed as a combination of the artwork of Steve Ditko and John Romita.

The film is presented in the anamorphic format. The film's 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 created specifically for the film create a unique experience; Persichetti described this experience as a combination of the effects of an old-fashioned hand-drawn multiplane camera and a modern virtual reality environment. 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.

Music

Main article: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (soundtrack)

Daniel Pemberton was announced as the film's composer in July 2018. A full soundtrack album was released by Republic Records on December 13, and was curated to represent what a teen like Morales would listen to. A separate album containing Pemberton's score is scheduled to be released by Sony Classical on December 17.

Marketing

A thirty-second sizzle reel from the film was shown at a Sony Animation presentation in January 2017, revealing that the film focuses on Morales. Scott Mendelson at Forbes said the footage "looked incredible stylized and resembled a cross between an Alex Ross image and a psychedelic [comic] cover", but felt the most significant element of the presentation was the confirmation of Morales, meaning "2018 will offer another comic book superhero movie featuring a hero of color, during the same year as Marvel's Black Panther." A teaser trailer for the film debuted at the 2017 Comic Con Experience, before being released online. Chris Cabin at Collider felt the trailer "looks much better than it ever needed to. The style and design that is on display ... is vibrant and immediately engaging on a visual level, showing a genuine sense of personality to the production." io9's Julie Muncy called the trailer's visual design "elegant" and "fresh", and highlighted the use of music by Vince Staples, which was also used for the Black Panther trailers.

The official trailer for the film was released online at the start of June 2018, and was praised by Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge for its "absolutely gorgeous" art style. He also highlighted the non-Peter Parker Spider-Men featured in the trailer, namely Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy. For Cartoon Brew, Amid Amidi praised the trailer for focusing on drama rather than action, and for seemingly targeting "a slightly hipper, more urban, and teen-oriented crowd", feeling that animated films were usually focused on pleasing "all-ages, all-audiences" which marked this film as a "radical change for United States feature animation". At Forbes, Dani Di Placido praised the trailer for inspiring interest in the Spider-Man property after several different incarnations of the character had already been featured in films. He felt it achieved this by leaning into the comic storyline of the Spider-Verse and featuring multiple versions of the character in one film, as well as its "beautifully rendered" visuals that differentiated it from other major animated films. Placido added that "it's nice to see a movie just go nuts and embrace the weirdness of comic books and their eternally shapeshifting storylines." The trailer generated 164 thousand conversations across social media platforms within a day of its release, and in three days had been viewed 44 million times making the film one of Sony's most viral alongside Sausage Party (2016).

Sony released a second trailer for the film in October 2018, ahead of a panel to promote the film at New York Comic Con where the first 35 minutes of the film were shown. Lord and Miller explained that they chose not to show various clips from throughout the film because they would lack context for the audience, so went with an extended sequence for the presentation even though it featured some unfinished animation and music. At that time, Sony's film Venom was released in theaters, featuring another extended clip from Into the Spider-Verse as a post-credits scene. The scene confirmed that the shared universe that Venom is part of is one of the universes connected within the "Spider-Verse" multiverse. In November, Sony launched Spider-Verse Web AR Experience, a mobile augmented reality experience created by 8th Wall and Trigger to run on Amazon Web Services. Inspired by the film, the AR experience allows users to include Spider-Man in photos that they take of their environment. The film also received a $115 million promotional "boost" from various companies—one of the largest such campaigns for a Sony film—including the Ad Council, who included the film's characters in an anti-bullying campaign; McDonald's, with a unique Happy Meal TV spot created in the film's animation style, as well as a special "double height" Happy Meal box for Australian McDonalds locations designed like a skyscraper that the characters can swing from; Synchrony Bank as part of their "Save Like a Hero" campaign; Nike, who sold the Air Jordans shoes that Morales wears in the film; General Mills cereal; official toy lines from Hasbro; themed cruises with Genting Cruise Lines; a "comprehensive" social media-based campaign in China by Tencent QQ, a brand that can be seen in the film; and other technology partners eBay, Vodafone, Garmin, Adobe, and Wacom.

Release

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was released on December 14, 2018 by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label. The film was originally going to be released on July 20 of that year. However, Sony Pictures pushed the date back to December 21 in order to make room for their other film The Equalizer 2. The film was then later moved it up a week. The film held its premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2018, and featured a tribute to Stan Lee.

Reception

Box office

In the United States and Canada, Into the Spider-Verse was released alongside Mortal Engines and The Mule, and is projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,813 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $3.5 million from Thursday night previews.

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 98% approval rating based on 204 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." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by PostTrak gave the film a 90% overall positive score and an 85% "definite recommend".

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..." 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." Johnny Oleksinski of The New York Post gave the film a 3.5 rating out of 4, hailing the film 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". Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "...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."

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. Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times said that "[w]hat distinguishes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in the end is that it takes its mission seriously, even when it's being transparently silly".

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
New York Film Critics Circle Awards	November 29, 2018	Best Animated Feature	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	Won
Detroit Film Critics Society	December 3, 2018	Best Animated Film		Won
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards	December 3, 2018	Best Animated Feature	Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman	Nominated
		Best Animated Voice Performance	Shameik Moore	Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	December 7, 2018	Best Animated Feature	Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman	Won
New York Film Critics Online	December 9, 2018	Best Animated Feature	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse	Won
San Francisco Film Critics Circle	December 9, 2018	Best Animated Feature		Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association	December 9, 2018	Best Animated Feature		Won
San Diego Film Critics Society	December 10, 2018	Best Animated Feature		Runner-up
Phoenix Critics Circle	December 15, 2018	Best Animated Feature		Pending
		Best Movie Based on a Comic Book or Graphic Novel		Pending
St. Louis Film Critics Association	December 16, 2018	Best Animated Feature		Pending
Seattle Film Critics Society	December 17, 2018	Best Animated Feature	Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman	Pending
Golden Globe Awards	January 6, 2019	Best Animated Feature Film		Pending
Critics' Choice Movie Awards	January 11, 2019	Best Animated Feature		Pending
Annie Awards	February 2, 2019	Best Animated Feature	Avi Arad, Amy Pascal, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Christina Steinberg	Pending
		Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production	David Han	Pending
		Outstanding Achievement for Character Design in an Animated Feature Production	Shiyoon Kim	Pending
		Outstanding Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production	Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman	Pending
		Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Feature Production	Justin K. Thompson	Pending
		Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production	Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman	Pending
		Outstanding Achievement for Editorial in an Animated Feature Production	Bob Fisher, Andrew Leviton and Vivek Sharma	Pending

Future

In August 2018, the directors were still focused on completing the film but acknowledged that the introduction of the Spider-Verse in the film created the potential for many different stories to be told moving forward depending on the success of this film. By the end of November, Sony was developing a sequel and several spin-offs from the film due to the "incredible buzz" surrounding it. Joaquim Dos Santos and David Callaham were set to direct and write the sequel, respectively, which would continue Morales's story. One of the spin-offs, a Spider-Women film focused on three generations of female Spider-related characters, in particular Spider-Gwen had Bek Smith set to write, and Lauren Montgomery in talks to direct. Asked whether the spin-offs could extend into other media such as television, Lord and Miller both expressed interest in seeing a series of shorts starring Spider-Ham.

External links

• Official website
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse at IMDb