Across the Spider-Verse Will Be Two Parts
There’s a fine art to making the middle movie of an entire trilogy. It may feel like a cliché to go back to that “The Empire Strikes Back” handbook that seems to dictate darker stories, a legendary villain, and a cliffhanger ending, but some tropes are tropes for a reason — they work! We’re about to find out for ourselves just how effective this approach will be for “Across the Spider-Verse,” though that’s not to say that this didn’t give the filmmakers plenty of sleepless nights while making the sequel. Directors Justin K. Thompson, Joaquim Dos Santos, and Kemp Powers all stepped in for the previous creative team on “Into the Spider-Verse,” which featured the trio of Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman.
In the same interview, Thompson went on to describe the nerves he felt when given the task of turning “Across the Spider-Verse” into a two-part extravaganza. To his credit, he seems well aware of all the pitfalls of such a decision:
“I think it was just probably nerve-wracking to think, ‘I hope we can make this feel like a complete film.’ […] And it wasn’t so much like, ‘Hey, they split in two.’ It was more like we needed to be certain by the time this film came out that it was its own film and could stand alone and was a complete story, but still had enough of a question that was unanswered to make audiences want to see the next part.”
Based on early tracking, it sure seems like audiences are going to be hungry for more of Miles Morales for years to come — cliffhanger or not. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” swings into theaters June 2, 2023.
