In 2022, the plan was for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to be released in 2023, with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse wrapping up the trilogy the following year.
While the first of those movies arrived as planned, it quickly became apparent that the threequel wouldn't meet its intended release date. A series of delays followed, but Beyond the Spider-Verse finally swings into theaters next summer.
Talking to io9, Spider-Verse franchise masterminds Phil Lord and Christopher Miller addressed how the movie evolved when it became apparent that there wasn't enough story to justify an entire movie...but too much story for the second chapter!
"At one point it was one movie, but there was too much movie there, so it was separated into two," Miller explained. "But then once you looked at that second half of a movie, you’re like, ‘Well, that’s like not just a story arc that has a beginning, middle, and end."
Lord added, "We know where it’s headed, but we need to understand better what’s happening in the middle. And we came upon a really wonderful notion, which is when your family is broken apart by your calling, your talents, how do you put them back together? How do you have it all?"
Expectations are sky high from fans, and that's not lost on the Project Hail Mary filmmakers. "We put the most pressure on ourselves," Miller said. "There’s no one that puts more pressure on us than ourselves, wanting to outdo ourselves each time and see things that you haven’t seen before and make it feel like something you’ve never experienced before."
"And so, trying to get something that is as worthy as the previous two has been the driver," he continued, before Lord chimed in to say, "The main trick is to play free. And to have the whole team understand that their job is to try stuff. To make mistakes, to see where this could go. And I can report that they’re going hard. It’s so great."
Ultimately, it was the process of figuring out how best to end Miles Morales' story that, as you might expect, led to the repeated delays. "Having to take it apart to put it back together again was really, really [the] real thing that made it take longer," Miller noted, with Lord emphasising, "And then we took a small detour."
Plot details for the threequel are being kept under wraps, but the last movie ended with Spider-Gwen gathering a team of heroes to track down Miles Morales after he found himself stranded on Earth-42.
Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 4, 2027.