Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse: 8 Things You Didn't Know About The Movie
Revisit some of the most interesting things from the animated Spider-Man movie that kick-started the multiverse!
It’s a good time to be a Spider-Man fan. Fans of the character are spoiled for choice when it comes to top-quality interpretations of the character. Tom Holland’s hugely successful third outing as the character in Spider-Man: No Way Home united all three live-action versions of the character, while Insomniac’s Spider-Man, for the PlayStation, is redefining what is possible for the character in the video game medium.
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However, no Spider-Man project has revolutionized or modernized the Spider-Man character more in recent years than 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The animated movie introduced mainstream audiences to Miles Morales’ version of the character, while also acquainting casual fans of the character with the idea of a Spider-Man multiverse; an idea which has come to fruition in the live-action space with Spider-Man: No Way Home. Before Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) swings into a theater near you, revisit some of the most interesting things from the movie that kick-started it all.
The creator of Spider-Man, along with a host of other Marvel comic-book characters, Stan Lee had become a mainstay in superhero movies, and popular culture at large, in the last few decades of his life by his notable cameo appearances in Marvel movies. Ranging from blink and you’ll miss him cameos to more substantial speaking parts, Stan Lee cameos were an enjoyable and crowd-pleasing moment in many Marvel movies.
Sadly, Lee passed away in November 2018 shortly before Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was released. Lee does make a cameo appearance in the film as the owner of the costume shop where Miles buys his makeshift Spider-Man costume. In a scene made all the more poignant due to Lee’s passing, Lee declares that he’s going to miss Spider-Man who died earlier in the movie, a sentiment the audience feels for Lee himself, knowing this is one of the final times he’ll appear on screen.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was widely praised upon its release in 2018, but the major critical highlight would come with its academy award for Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards. Beating out movies like Incredibles 2 and Isle of Dogs, Into the Spider-Verse became only the second non-Disney/Pixar movie since 2007’s Ratatouille to win Best Animated Feature.
This victory was a huge win for Sony Pictures Animation, the creative team, and the whole animation department behind the massively experimental movie.
Speaking of the massively experimental nature of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, one thing that many people may not realize about the movie is that, unlike many other animated features that strive for perfection, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was designed to be imperfect.
As revealed in behind-the-scenes conversations with the animation team (via Youtube) responsible for the movie, the Sony Animation team designed the world of the movie to be imperfect and many elements were deliberately misaligned to give the impression of imperfection. The result is something that definitely feels closer to a comic book/hybrid than a traditional Disney animated feature.
One of the standout characters in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s diverse roster of Spider-people is Spider-Man Noir, voiced by the brilliantly unhinged Nic Cage. Pulled from a black-and-white alternative universe, Spider-Man Noir is a 1930s detective-esque version of the character, and this allowed Nic Cage to be creative with the kind of dialogue he spoke in character, but this almost led to a huge mishap with adult jokes nearly appearing in the finished film.
In an interview (via Collider), directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Chris Miller, and Phil Lord revealed a number of fascinating details from behind-the-scenes, including the fact that Nic Cage originally recorded 1930s-era slang for the movie that would have gotten the film slapped with an NC-17 rating, due to the provocative translations of the words. Luckily, someone had the common sense to google the meaning of the terms, and they were removed from the finished product.
Donald Glover has a history with the character of Miles Morales that stretches back to the origin of the character. His character in the TV series Community is seen sporting a pair of Spider-Man pajamas in the premiere episode of the second season, which in turn inspired the creation of Miles Morales from comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse acknowledges Glover’s impact on the creation of the character with a cameo appearance in the movie. When Miles goes to visit his uncle Aaron, there’s a television with a blurry animated version of the Community scene in question in the background.
A further cameo appearance in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that acknowledges another modern interpretation of the character occurs when Miles visits the hidden lair of the recently deceased Spider-Man from Miles’ dimension. Apart from meeting multidimensional versions of Spider-Man, a collection of Spider-Man costumes can be seen in the background, including the signature Spider-Man suit created for Insomniac’s Spider-Man video game.
Into the Spider-Verse pays homage and honors many different versions and interpretations of the character from his comic-book origins, but it’s nice to see the filmmakers acknowledge the influence of that the character has had in other media. Insomniac’s Spider-Man has redefined the character in the video game medium for a whole new generation of Spider-Man fans, and it’s great to see that role acknowledged in a feature film.
The auteur filmmaker responsible for the Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, heaped praise on Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when he named it his favorite superhero of all time in 2020.
While participating in the 30-Day Movie Challenge on Twitter, Gunn revealed that his favorite superhero movie was Into the Spider-Verse. Gunn is famously known for his honest, and sometimes brash, opinions on film, so to hear such high praise from the influential filmmaker is a sure-fire sign that the movie is as beloved by those in Hollywood, as it is by fans around the world.
Of all the iconic moments in Spider-Man: No Way Home, none compare with the arrivals of Andrew Garfield and Tobey McGuire’s Spider-Men, and the team-up of all three live-action versions of the character that follows. The moment is huge and crowd-pleasing, but we could have gotten a version of this moment back in 2018 if an idea by co-director Rodney Rothman had come to fruition.
On the podcast The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, co-director Rodney Rothman revealed that he wrote a scene that included all three live-action versions of the character, but ultimately scrapped it for fear of confusing mainstream audiences. It’s befitting then that Into the Spider-Verse introduced mainstream audiences to the idea of multiple different versions of the same character together in the same movie, which in turn paved the way for the eventual meeting that occurred in Spider-Man: No Way Home.