“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has resonated with audiences in almost as many ways as there are multiverses. There’s the emotionality of webslinger Miles Morales and his family, both inherited and found, that drives his heroism. The thematic resonance of a young person determined to tell his own story authentically. Action sequences that are as inventive as they are viscerally thrilling. And audacious animation that juxtaposes dynamic poses and painterly images.
This multidimensional success of “Across the Spider-Verse” can be directly attributed to its three directors, Kemp Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson — indeed, to the fact that there are three. Set to receive Variety’s Creative Impact in Animation Award on July 18, the trio leaned into individual strengths while working together toward a common goal, balancing formal innovation and timeless truths to create a forward-thinking animated classic.
“The astoundingly talented Joaquim, Justin and Kemp are individually wonderful filmmakers and people, but they also worked wonderfully together,” writer-producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller told Variety. “And that is because they each approach filmmaking as an act of generosity. They know that filmmaking is ultimately a dialogue among artists and their conversation is always a thrill.”
To hear them talk about how they worked — together and separately — on the film is to understand its enormity and complexity. All three come from different backgrounds and take on different roles, yet they agree that collaboration was their guiding principle. Powers is an accomplished playwright and screenwriter (“One Night in Miami,” “Soul”), Dos Santos has extensive TV animation experience on shows including “The Legend of Korra” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” and Thompson worked on “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” as a production designer.
Thompson likens their creative process to “an assembly line,” with Powers and Lord “working on the writing, which is at the front end of that pipeline. Then Joaquim will be in the middle with storyboards and layouts. Then it comes to me to put the final assembly together. But we could hit the stop button at any time and go back to the beginning.”
To generate that emotional gravitas that hooked audiences, Powers worked with the voice actors, which include Shameik Moore as Spidey and Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Tracy, plus Jake Johnson, Jason Schwartzman and Brian Tyree Henry. “We worked hard in recording sessions to explore those dramatic moments,” he says. “In many cases, I had to play the scene partner for our performers, because they often don’t record together.”
There were exceptions to this process. “We actually put actors together for some particularly dramatic moments. A great example would be George Stacy and his daughter Gwen, near the end of the movie. Shea Whigham and Hailee Steinfeld are in the room together so that they are able to react to the performance of the other person. [But] the voice performance is only half of it.”
The other half, of course, is the work of the animators, who were encouraged to add their own personal experiences into the film. The glue that cemented them was a little bit of patience — granting those voice performances the time and space they needed on screen to come alive.
“This film allows scenes to breathe, to play as though you’re shooting live action,” says Dos Santos. “Usually when you’re creating animated fare, when you are done with a scene, you move on to the next one. We can’t linger too long. This is the opposite.”
Dos Santos had never directed a film like this “Spider-Man” sequel before, but he brought a wealth of experience from his work on TV projects, and Kristine Belson, president of Sony Pictures Animation, praises him as “an amazing dramatic action storyteller. He can conceive of action sequences in an extraordinary way.”
Following in the footsteps of “Into the Spider-Verse,” an Oscar-winning financial triumph, was a welcome challenge for the trio. “I was inspired by the first film — it was one of the reasons I was so excited about doing the sequel,” says Dos Santos. “There was a before ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ time and an after ‘Spider-Verse’ time with regards to feature animation. And when that film landed, it planted a flag.”
They became determined to borrow from its inspiration without succumbing to creative repetition, with Powers reveling in the “openness to trying just about anything, both in terms of the visual and the storytelling language. That’s something that you don’t get an opportunity to do very often, particularly in the feature space and at this scale.
“There’s a certain amount of problem solving on a mass scale, on a regular basis and at the speed of thought that I think is going to really improve me as a filmmaker and as a writer going forward,” Powers says.
Throughout the process, the three directors led the filmmaking team in a non-hierarchical way. “We never approached it like we’re the directors talking from on high,” Thompson says.“We gave people the space to come up with their own answers.”
Belson adds, “It’s hard to make these movies, yet everybody always wanted to hear if somebody had an idea for how to do something better.”
Their film has already outpaced its Spidey predecessor, earning $642 million to date at the global box office, and its critical and commercial success not only marks an exciting moment for animation, but for Dos Santos, Powers and Thompson. They hope to carry their experiences, and that energy, forward into their future endeavors, including the next adventure of the web slinger — “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse”— due from Sony Animation next year.
“I have waited my entire career for there to be a time where an animated feature film could be told this way, drama mixed with comedy and a no-rules take on what animation could be,” says Dos Santos. “For many years feature animation was geared specifically towards family-friendly fare. I think this film pushes the edges. I’m excited to take the momentum of this film and apply it to animation moving forward.
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