Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is arguably one of the best Spider-Man stories to date; however, it appears that the movie’s plot was predicted years before the release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. A handful of people noticed that this Spidey sequel’s main conflict resembles a skit in an old Netflix show.
A clip from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has been circulating on social media, featuring Titus auditioning for the role of “Spider-Man number 12” in the Broadway show Spider-Man Too: 2 Many Spider-Men. In the clip, this aspiring actor sang a song where he aimed to “crush all the Spider-men” to become the one and only Spider-Man. Although the audition song differs from the one in the film, some of the musical’s lyrics are close to the film’s central conflict.
This clip resurfaced TikTok once again after the theatrical release of Across the Spider-Verse. While Titus auditioned for a role of an ambitious Spider-Man, his motivations are more similar to Spot, who wants to use his powers to destroy Miles Morales. The second song sounded like it may be based on Gwen Stacy/SpiderWoman, who now wants to stop Miguel O’Hara and the rest of Spider Society from hurting Miles.
While the two pieces of media aren’t an exact match, it’s fascinating to see how a TV show from 2015 managed to somewhat predict the events of a movie that came out eight years later. If you want to see this clip with context, it’s from the season one episode called “Kimmy Goes to the Doctor!” and is still available to be streamed on Netflix. Meanwhile, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is now showing in theaters.