Last year’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ended on a somewhat down note: Miles Morales was trapped on Earth-42, chained up by that universe’s version of himself, who’s operating as the new Prowler alongside his still-alive Uncle Aaron. Gwen Stacy, meanwhile, had rounded up her own team of Spider-heroes to go find him across the multiverse, just as an amped-up Spot had made his way back to Miles’ home dimension so he could consume it. That “To Be Continued…” card hit like a gut punch, but one alleviated by the fact that at the time, follow-up Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse was less than a year away.
In fact, Beyond the Spider-Verse was once slated to be released this weekend, on March 29, 2024. All the way back in late 2021, co-writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller revealed Across was being split into two movies in order to bring things to a close as a trilogy. Across came out to a big box office haul and similarly glowing praise as its predecessor, 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, but things took a turn after a Vulture report revealed how the sequel was a time-crunch and mismanagement nightmare (much of it allegedly on Lord’s end). And as a two-part movie, the disarray of Across would naturally spread to Beyond, which some animators who worked on the sequel film said would be “impossible” to get out by late March.
Following the Vulture report, Lord and Miller vaguely stated Sony Animation would “take the time necessary” on Beyond, and had no intention of releasing it before it was ready. Come July, the threequel was removed from Sony’s 2024 release schedule entirely, with its March slot now filled by the just-released Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Even though the Hollywood strikes played a hand in that decision—for one thing, the voice cast couldn’t record their lines in time—its removal was a nonetheless quiet admission of the film’s production issues.
The strikes were fully resolved in November, after which halted productions like Venom: The Last Dance started spinning up again. Where does this put Beyond the Spider-Verse? Not a clue; Brian Tyree Henry vaguely said “it’s coming” when recently asked about it, and cryptically teased it would live up to the hype. Sony, Lord, and Miller haven’t offered any substantial insight onto the movie’s progress; in January, Lord said the trilogy would come to a “very satisfying conclusion” that hopefully won’t require the staff to make a whole new ending weeks before release. It’s anybody’s guess as to when it’ll actually swing into theaters, but spring or summer 2025 feels likely. (Sony’s Spider-solution for this summer is to put all its mainline Spider-Man movies back in theaters.)
Does it suck that we’re not watching Beyond the Spider-Verse right now? Without a doubt, but I’d rather have a film that takes its time getting made versus one crunched to hell and back. As much as I like Across, you can feel its production issues throughout that movie, whether it’s scenes having slightly different variations—or the fact that Miles G. is painted as a villain at the end, but in behind-the-scenes material he’s actually a vigilante. And it’s not like we’re hard up on Spidey material right now—along with Spider-Man 2 on PS5, Sony found time to put out a short film focused on Miles and his anxiety issues.
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