Aside from the inverted skyline, the only giveaway that something is off in one of the most striking images of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the ponytail thats sticking straight up in the air.
Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) and Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) have just reunited in the Into the Spider-Verse sequel. After giddily swinging through New York skyscrapers, they perch themselves on the underside of a clocktower ledge. Their view is ours: An upside-down city, shimmering in the distance.
Everything is the wrong way, but if feels right, says Phil Lord, who wrote and produced Across the Spider-Verse with Christopher Miller.
In the movies of Lord and Miller, a filmmaking duo since they met in college at Dartmouth, down is frequently up, and up is often down. Theyve turned seemingly terrible ideas a Lego movie, a 21 Jump Street movie into original works of antic, innovative comedy. One of their crowning achievements, the Oscar-winning Into the Spider-Verse, took a hatchet to superhero movie conventions. Spider-Man, for the first time, was a biracial kid from Brooklyn. He was also, thanks to a mosh pit of multiverses, just about anyone, or anything, you could think of.
With that mask that covers an entire body and face, you can imagine yourself in that suit, says Miller. The whole goal of this trilogy was to let everybody feel like it could be me, and show as many different types of people and animals being Spider-Man as possible.
It took nearly five years, a crew of a thousand and a cavalcade of Spider-People, but the second chapter of Miller and Lords Spider-Verse series has arrived. It might be their masterpiece. In Across the Spider-Verse an eyeball-delighting, electrically animated whirligig of color and sound Lord and Miller set out not just to surpass the high bar of their 2018 original but upend big-studio animation and the more-of-the-same expectations of sequel-making.
It was an opportunity to show the limitless possibilities of animation in a studio film, says Miller. For too long, the studios were mandating that these films all look the same. And we wanted to blow the doors open on that.
Across the Spider-Verse certainly blasted expectations on opening weekend. It debuted with $120.5 million, way above tracking estimates and more than triple what Into the Spider-Verse launched with. What was once a quirky minor player in the hulking world of superhero movies has turned into not just a blockbuster but a genuine pop-culture sensation and, maybe, a new high point in comic-book movies.
When you have the confidence of the audience like I hope we have from the first movie, you sort of want to use it as a springboard to take more chances, says Lord. We couldnt justify doing this with any other story or any other point in our careers. We were like: Lets swing the biggest bat we can.
Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson, continues the story of Miles, now a veteran crime-fighter but also a teenager with an increasingly strained relationship with his parents. They remain unaware of his secret identity.
But much isnt straightforward in Across the Spider-Verse, which Lord and Miller penned with David Callaham. There are countless other parallel Earths, each with their own Spider-Person. One is Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Mans traditional love interest whos now a potent force, herself. Worlds collide, many times over.
Theres also a Spidey collective that keep these universes in balance by making sure certain canonical moments happen for each hero. There may be wide latitude in who can be Spider-Man, but a foundation of formula must be obeyed.
This battle with Canon is in many ways Lord and Millers fight, too. Theyve spent their careers deconstructing convention and inverting tropes. They have sometimes pushed right up against Hollywoods limits. In mid-production on Solo, the Han Solo standalone Star Wars film, they were famously replaced after a clash over the films tone.
Across the Spider-Verse, a part two ending in an abrupt cliffhanger, plunges directly into the question: So what is gospel for Lord and Miller? Is anything?
Who seeks to become an artist in order to be a column that upholds the temple? says Lord, laughing. Thats no fun.
The Solo kerfuffle might have been their Network moment. (You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale.) Instead, Lord and Miller have, if anything, doubled down on their devotion to tearing up Hollywood playbooks.
We have a natural aversion to the dangers of nostalgia. It can be a calcifying effect on people, says Miller. Theres a lot of anger and hate coming out of wanting to preserve things the way theyve always been. Thats not how society works. We need to keep evolving and making things new and growing. We cant just perfectly preserve the past.
The movies you love were all daring in their time, adds Lord. The idea isnt to copy them. Its to be as equally daring as Snow White or Toy Story or Jaws.
Their collage-like films, like Michael Riandas family road trip The Mitchells vs. The Machines, are often in some way contemplating humanity in increasingly digital worlds. Lord and Miller were behind the meme-turned-movie Cocaine Bear earlier this year.
Set to a modern hip-hop beat and chock-full of ever-changing shocks of color that channel the 2-D art of comic books, Across the Spider-Verse summons multiverses with the ease of a keystroke. But it does so far more playfully, disorderly and distinctly un-algorithm-like. Striving for originality, they say, is how to keep the robots guessing.
The AI isnt going to generate something new and original, says Miller, who along with Lord, is an outspoken Writers Guild member in the current strike where artificial intelligence is a top issue. Its going to just do an imitation of the things that came before it. Its our job as humans to keep making things new.
But as dizzying as Across the Spider-Verse can be visually, the imagery is ultimately in service of its central characters inner lives. To the 28-year-old Moore, Miles appeal isnt that hes exceptional. Its that hes recognizably ordinary.
There are young Black kids that are just like Miles. Regular, cool, kinda nerdy, weird, loveable kids. Same thing on the Hispanic side, says Moore. People want to meet him. My lines at Comic-Con are insane.
Moore never received a script for either film, just a sense of major plot points. Three times a month, for four years, he would go into a recording booth for six-hour sessions with Lord, Miller and the directors.
Theyll play with it for hours. Well do another session where they lock in on whatever they like the most and then theyll play with it again. Its really like theyre having fun, more than anything, says Moore. The whole project is being treated like a passion project. It doesnt feel like someone is watching over them.
At the same time, Across the Spider-Verse grapples with not just the responsibilities of Spider-Man (Miles) but of his anxious, doubting parents (Brian Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Vélez) and Gwens disapproving father (Shea Whigham). Its a coming-of age-story, but as Miller says, the parents have to come of age, too.
And what makes someone legitimate? says Lord. Do you seek that outside of yourself? Or can you simply seek your own approval? Miles is like all of us hoping for validation outside. But it can never really satisfy you. You have to take it on yourself. Even though the movie ends in a cliffhanger, I think thats what he achieves. Its an epic action movie where the story is really internal. Hes the MacGuffin.
Some of the same questions exist for Lord and Miller, both 47 and increasingly prominent power players with a long pipeline of projects in development. Later this summer they have the R-rated dog comedy Strays in theaters. Even a live-action movie for Miles is in the mix.
You always feel like an outsider even if youre working inside these big companies, says Miller. Otherwise, you become the Empire.
Beyond the Spider-Verse, the third film in the trilogy is due out in less than a year, on March 29. It will bring to a conclusion Miles looming battle with Spider-Man Canon. Just how far Miles and Lord and Miller are able to stretch the Marvel webslinger will be put to a final test.
Given whos behind these films, dont put a lot of money on Canon emerging victorious.
