It takes more than one person to direct multiple Spider-Men.
Sony has announced that Into the Spider-Verse 2 will have the directing trio of Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson to handle the continuing adventures of Miles Morales and the other Spider-champions of the Marvel Multiverse.
The Spider-Verse
Premiering in 2018, Into the Spider-Verse played like a typical Spider-Man adventure…until the Kingpin kills a blonde-haired Peter Parker during a battle at a lab.
The same battle causes young Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), to gain spider-like powers. Miles is inspired to become a new Spider-Man before meeting the jaded Peter (Jake Johnson) of another reality.
Soon, the pair are working alongside Ghost-Spider (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider Noir (Nicolas Cage), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), and other alternate Spider-champions in a grand adventure.
The movie was a smash hit that also won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and hailed for bringing Miles Morales to the big screen.
The sequel will have original writer/producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, while the trio of directors has great credentials.
Dos Santos worked on the hit animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, while Thompson won an Annie Award for his work on the original Spider-Verse. Kemp is nominated for an Oscar writing One Night In Miami and co-director of the Oscar-nominated Pixar film Soul.
Lord and Miller sent out a message welcoming the trio aboard.
“We are so lucky to have Joaquim, Justin, and Kemp on the ‘Spider-Verse’ team. We are huge fans of Joaquim’s work — he makes his characters so heartfelt and unique, and he can tell an emotional story with an action sequence the way a musical does through a song. Justin is a maverick filmmaker who relentlessly pursues visual innovation and surprise but always in support of the emotional storytelling. Kemp’s work is incisive and ambitious and funny — with a writer’s wisdom and a director’s heart — he just knows what matters in every scene. All three of them elevate every project they take on, and they are certainly raising our game. We honestly just like them and want to be their friends and we’re hoping working on this movie together for the next few years will totally make that happen.”
Plot details are tight, but it’s expected the film will continue to have Miles meeting other Spider-Men of alternate worlds. That may include the popular Spider-Man 2099, who showed up in the post-credits scene for the first film.
Live-action Spider-Verse?
The new film is intriguing given how rumors continue to abound that Spider-Man No Way Home will be a live-action Spider-Verse.
Alfred Molina confirmed he would be returning as Doctor Octopus from 2004’s Spider-Man 2, while Jamie Foxx will appear as The Amazing Spider-Man’s Electro. Somehow, both are plucked from their respective fates to appear in the MCU.
A recent post on Reddit claims that Doctor Strange cameos to warn Peter (Tom Holland) that “the multiverse is breaking.” While Holland continues to deny it in interviews, the idea he meets the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Men continues to grow.
While that may be difficult to pull off in live-action, fans can look forward to a trio of animation powerhouses bringing Miles’ multiverse adventures to a new level.
Spider-Man No Way Home premieres December 17, 2021. Into the Spider-Verse 2 scheduled for theaters October 7, 2022.