The hotly anticipated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will reportedly contain a dig or two at the Sony executives who oversaw the movie.
2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a triumph; It was commercially and critically successful, it brought fan-favorite Miles Morales to the big screen, and it got so many crucial things right about the Spider-Man character.
Now, with the sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, due out later this year, audiences are hoping that lightning strikes twice for the animated film series. And as with any big-budget superhero epic, the studio’s executives are hoping for a piece of the pie as well.
Spider-Verse 2 Has Fun at Sony’s Expense
In a new interview with Empire, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse writer-producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller revealed that their animated sequel took some lighthearted, in-movie shots at the Sony executives that they reported to while making the film.
To illustrate his point, Lord made reference to a moment in the original Spider-Verse movie, in which Peter B. Parker exclaims “He can’t do it on command!” In reference to Miles’ power to turn invisible:
“That line probably came from us trying to explain Miles’ abilities to studio execs. A lot of things we hear in production end up in the movies. There’s a moment like that in ['Across The Spider-Verse'] an executive was asking us to make something about a character clearer, so we just put that conversation straight into the film.”
So, essentially, the producers lifted their interactions with the studio and cleverly dropped them into the film’s script.
Miller also noted that he and Phil Lord are on a constant quest during production to make things “funnier or more emotional” even if that requires “driving everyone crazy with the stress of finishing a movie days before it’s released.”
Hopefully, their steadfast commitment to wringing more heart and humor from the film pays off in the finished product, even if the duo’s highly improvisational style caused some behind-the-scenes troubles.
A Real-World Dive Into the Sony-Verse
It’s quite amusing that Lord and Miller had some sly fun at the expense of their bosses at Sony. Especially considering that the general consensus among creatives is that when the studio provides notes or feedback on movies or shows, it’s often unnecessary, annoying, or at times, downright ignorant.
Fans will need to continue to wonder exactly which moment in Across the Spider-Verse Lord was referring to when they essentially copied and pasted their interactions with Sony into it. But given the comical, irreverent tone of these movies, the dialogue should fit right in, likely going undetected.
Across the Spider-Verse continues the story of Miles Morales, who became his universe’s Spider-Man in the first film. In the sequel, young Miles gets drawn into the Multiverse and meets a plethora of Spider-Variants, perhaps including a certain live-action Web-Slinger.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings its way into theaters on June 2, 2023.
