With Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse just around the corner, it seems as though an all-out Spider-War is on the horizon - but how can the third movie in the animated franchise go even bigger?
Spoilers: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home
We're now only a month away from June's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which will mark the second installment in Marvel's animated Spider-Verse franchise, and it could just bring us our biggest threat to the multiverse yet. The movie will further the story of Shameik Moore's Miles Morales and Hailee Steinfeld's Gwen Stacy as they continue their exploration of the multiverse, and this time they're going to need to stop a threat that has its sights set on eliminating every universe as we know it (Kang who?). The villain of Across the Spider-Verse will be The Spot, whose body is entirely covered by interdimensional portals, allowing him to travel through different universes at will. Whilst it's safe to assume that Miles and his team of Spider-People will defeat this latest threat and protect the multiverse, this is a villain that requires potentially hundreds of Spider-Men to defeat. We could be getting our best multiversal action yet with this movie, and it is not ambitious to say that this is one of the biggest crossover movies in history.
The movie is set to feature cameos galore from a range of voice actors and an equal range of Spider-Man variants. The confirmed cast so far, aside from Moore and Steinfeld, includes the likes of Jake Johnson (reprising his role as Peter. B. Parker), Daniel Kaluuya (Spider-Punk), Karan Soni (Spider-Man India), Brian Tyree Henry (Miles' father Jefferson Davis), Oscar Isaac (Spider-Man 2099) and Andy Samberg (Scarlet Spider). It is also confirmed that the version of Spider-Man from the 1978 live-action Japanese TV series, the version from the Insomniac Spider-Man video games, and the version from the hit 2008-09 show Spectacular Spider-Man will all be appearing as members of the Spider-Society, led by Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099. On top of this, it was confirmed earlier this year that actress Peggy Lu would be reprising her role as Mrs. Chen from the live-action Venom films in a cameo appearance, and it's been heavily rumored that Tom Holland himself could be making a cameo as the MCU's Peter Parker, fresh out of his own multiverse adventure in Spider-Man: No Way Home. With a sequel to Across the Spider-Verse confirmed for a March 2024 release, entitled Beyond the Spider-Verse, you can't help but wonder how Marvel could up the ante even further for a threequel that is larger in scale and brings higher stakes, than the film we're seeing next month.
Well, you simply add more. More Spider-People, more big-name voice actors, more familiar faces, and more fan service. There are almost too many Spider-Man adaptations out there to count, so Marvel and Sony will never be lost on characters to add to the Spider-Verse canon - despite seeming overabundant, the plethora of Spider-Man characters appearing in Across the Spider-Verse is far from an exhaustive list. And there are a few obvious names who you will all notice have not yet appeared in the Spider-Verse movies. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's respective Peter Parker variants appeared in 2021's No Way Home, but both of their futures remain unclear in terms of further solo projects or involvement in crossover events. Could we see special appearances from them both in next year's Beyond the Spider-Verse? It would certainly be one way to go one step further than the already grand-scale cast of characters in Across the Spider-Verse. Another way would be to have Tom Holland's Spidey play a significant supporting role, which then has an impact on where things pick up in the MCU's untitled Spider-Man 4, almost acting as a bridge between No Way Home and Holland's fourth solo movie. However, you'd imagine that Marvel would preserve any sort of meaningful crossover between their Spider-Verse characters and their MCU characters (besides an occasional cameo) until potentially as late as Avengers: Secret Wars. But in the grand calculus of the multiverse, anything is possible, as we've now been taught on multiple occasions by the MCU.
You would also assume that the Spider-Verse films, no matter how much they might like to raise the bar through the ceiling, would stick to Spidey-associated characters, and not try to involve characters from other corners of the Marvel world. Whilst these movies are multiverse-centric, they are, at their core, Spider-Man films. That isn't to say it wouldn't be incredible to witness Miles Morales learn that there are infinite versions of every hero out there, not just Spider-Man, and this could feed into a potential live-action appearance in Avengers: Secret Wars. However, I think there's enough material in the already-expansive world of Spider-Man to produce a third Spider-Verse film that raises the bar higher, but still involves a cast of solely Spider-Man characters. As mentioned, bringing Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland, or possibly even Christopher Daniel Barnes' 1990's Spider-Man into the picture in Beyond the Spider-Verse would alone make it an arguably bigger film than Across.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hits theatres on June 2nd, 2023, and its sequel, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, is currently slated for release on March 29th, 2024.
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