We’ve had six Spidey solo movies over the past fifteen years, but Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has managed to offer something fresh. Apart from being the first theatrically-released animated pic to star the wallcrawler, the hero under the mask is not Peter Parker but Miles Morales, making his big screen debut.
Though the recent teaser trailer went viral, Sony is keeping a lid on the ins and outs of the movie for now. However, producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller have begun to tease what fans can expect. The LEGO Movie directors have a big hand in the film, as Lord also wrote the script (based on a story by himself, Miller and Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch), and while attending CCXP17 in Brazil, the pair had much to say about how they wanted to tell a “different kind of Spider-Man story” and how they really wanted to make Miles the star of the show.
“We wanted to make a story about Miles. And when they came to us, it seemed like an amazing opportunity to tell a different kind of Spider-Man story,” Lord said. “The thing that’s exciting to us is the idea that anyone can be behind the mask. It seemed like a really great opportunity to subvert your expectations of what you thought a Spider-Man movie could be.”
“And on top of that being able to do an animation was a really exciting opportunity,” added Miller, “because no one’s really ever made a superhero movie that has the look and feel of a comic book so it’s a really cool, double opportunity.”
The duo then went on to talk about how Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will expand the world of the webslinger’s mythos, teasing that “it’s a large universe out there.”
“When you take a big property like Spider-Man you know you can either play it safe or you can take it as a chance to do something really different,” Lord said. “And that’s the thing that we always like to do is use these as an opportunity to try new things”
I will say this is Miles movie,” Miller said. “He’s the protagonist of the movie, but it’s a large universe out there and there’s a lot of opportunities, and the movie enjoys that.”
“It’s a good tease, Christopher,” Lord joked. “I mean, it’s a teaser we’re showing. We can’t just, like, pull off the whole veil right now.”
With a title including the phrase Spider-Verse, it’s no secret that the film will feature more Spider-heroes than just Miles. We even got a glimpse of Peter in the teaser trailer, though it’s been confirmed that Tom Holland won’t be lending his voice to the part. Another alt-Spidey that we have a sneaky feeling might appear is Spider-Gwen, considering the character’s immense popularity in recent years.
Chalk that up as speculation for now, but what we can tell you with absolute certainty is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse stars Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Mahershala Ali as Aaron Davis/The Prowler and Liev Schreiber in an as-yet-unrevealed villainous role. It swings into theaters on December 14th, 2018.