Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will feature six major art styles. Speaking to Empire, producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller teased that the sequel to the Oscar-winning Miles Morales adventure will be far more ambitious and attempt to “wow” audiences with each new environment. The first film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse featured a unique visual language that played around with frame rates and textures. It was headed by Alberto Mielgo — best known for Love, Death & Robots’ Jibaro — before he was let go by Sony over creative differences. The returning producers will be “taking those tools” and derive the lessons learnt on The Mitchells Vs The Machines to expand on the scope of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
“The first film had one animation style that dominates the movie. This movie has six,” Lord told Empire. “[The goal] is to wow you every time you enter a new environment, and also to make sure that the style of the movie reflects the story, and that the images are driven by feelings, as opposed to some egg-headed art project. Which it also is, by the way!” A new image from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has also been released, featuring a close-up shot of Spider-Woman/ Gwen Stacy (Hailey Steinfeld) from the Earth-65 dimension, which we will visit in the film. “And that was a watercolour-wash style that’s reminiscent of the covers of her comic books,” co-producer Miller added.
While the original 2018 film featured different character design styles for the Spider-People from different universes, as we now delve into those worlds, the entire frame will harbour a unique style, derived from their respective comic book versions. “The two that you saw in the teaser trailer were what’s called Earth-50101, which we’re calling ‘Mumbattan’ — that’s based on an Indian comic-book look — and Nueva York from Spider-Man 2099’s world,” Miller explained in the interview. “That’s based on Syd Mead-style illustrations of what the future might look like.”
Sony Pictures initially titled the two-part sequel as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part Two). The latter was rebranded, earlier this year, to Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, slated for a 2024 release. At the time, co-producers Lord and Miller confirmed that the sequel would drastically expand on the first film by featuring over 240 characters spread out across six universes. This explains the aforementioned art style changes.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse introduces an enigmatic villain named The Spot, who will be voiced by Jason Schwartzman (The French Dispatch). As one of the “deepest cuts” in the Spider-Man canon, the antagonist’s body is covered in interdimensional portals, that can send him across multiple variants of Earth. The film sees Shameik Morre returning to voice Miles Morales, alongside new members Daniel Kaluuya as Spider-Punk, Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight), and Issa Rae (The Lovebirds).
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is slated to release June 2, 2023, in theatres worldwide. In India, the animated film will be out in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.
