Shortly after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swung in theaters, some eagle-eyed fans noticed that the version they were watching during repeat viewings slightly differed from what they'd seen during the sequel's opening weekend.
It's no secret that an updated cut of the movie featuring improved audio was sent out to theaters following complaints. However, when Across the Spider-Verse recently hit digital platforms, many fans couldn't help but point out what appeared to be another series of sweeping changes to the animated blockbuster.
Talking to Games Radar (via Toonado.com) about their new movie Strays, producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally revealed why this new cut contains so many alterations.
"There was an international version that was made almost two months before the movie came out because it had to be translated into different languages and these French censors have to decide what the rating of the movie is in Europe," Miller says. "The team at [Sony Pictures] Imageworks still had some shots that they felt they could do better for the finished version. So, they cleaned up and tweaked those things."
"Certain crew members – people in the sound department or on the animation team – were like, 'Oh, could we do this instead?'" he adds. "Let’s do the best possible version we can. Because it’s a multiverse movie, it’s like there’s a multiverse of the movie - that was really the reasoning behind it."
"It was trying to make the best possible version that everyone was going to be the proudest of." Lord added, "I think most of the changes are improvements."
With that, the mystery has been solved and the answer we've all been waiting for...well, it's exactly what we expected. Given what's been said about the alterations made to Across the Spider-Verse during its production, it's also not surprising the same thing happened even as it was released.
The changes, while noteworthy, do nothing to dramatically alter the overall tone and feel of the movie, so we're not banking on anyone launching a hashtag campaign to #ReleaseTheSpideyCut...