Warning: This article contains spoilers for elements of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse featured almost “huge live-action sequences” despite being a sequel to one of the most popular animated films of recent times.
While the film offered glimpses of the MCU with clips from previous Spider-Man films, it sounds like fans might have gotten a glimpse of some other live-action Spideys.
During an interview with Variety, Across the Spider-Verse directors Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson revealed that they originally planned to move beyond these live-action clips.
“There were times when we had big live-action sequences in the film and it just turned into a bad joke.”
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“We had bigger ambitions,” Thompson said.
“There were times when we had big live-action sequences in the film and that just turned into a bad joke,” added Powers. “Even we didn’t like it anymore. And we just said, ‘Okay, enough, let’s make sure it’s something concise that offers the most value for money and that appeals to the story.’”
Neither Thompson nor Powers wanted to reveal what these sequences were about, but it sounds like they were created fairly early in the process and only existed as storyboards and animations with cut-out versions of the characters dubbed by the crew members.
“They looked like a South Park character,” Powers said.
“That’s what we should do as a character,” Thompson added
Across the Spider-Verse has already made a huge impression on audiences around the world, grossing a whopping $208.6 million on its worldwide debut. In fact, the domestic opening was nearly three times the size of the original Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Now part of a three-part trilogy, Across the Spider-Verse raises some interesting questions about the future.
The IGN review of Across the Spider-Verse gave it an 8/10, saying, “Across the Spider-Verse is a worthy follow-up to an all-time classic.”
Want to read more about Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse? Check out our ranking of every Spider-Man movie, as well as our breakdown of every different Spider-Men we spotted in the movie.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can keep following him Twitter.