On Earth-65, Gwen Stacy is struggling to live up to the expectations of her police captain father, who does not know that she is Spider-Woman. Years prior, Gwen accidentally killed her best friend Peter Parker while he was mindlessly rampaging as the Lizard, and the police have been hunting her ever since. One night, Gwen heads to the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan after hearing reports of an intruder and encounters a version of the Vulture from an Italian Renaissance-themed alternate universe. Spider-People Miguel O’Hara and Jess Drew arrive using portal-generating watches and help Gwen subdue the Vulture. Gwen is confronted on the scene by her father and reveals her identity to him. Distraught at this revelation, he attempts to arrest her. She escapes through a dimensional portal with the others after Miguel begrudgingly grants her membership in the Spider-Society.
In Brooklyn on Earth-1610, sixteen months after the destruction of the Alchemax collider, Miles Morales is adapting to being Spider-Man while missing Gwen and struggling to live up to his parents’ expectations. While heading to a parent-teacher evaluation, he encounters the Spot, a scientist whose body was infused with portals after the Alchemax collider explosion. Blaming Miles for his dilemma, the Spot brings Miles to Alchemax and reveals that the spider that bit Miles came from another universe when the Spot was testing the collider. He then accidentally transports himself into a void, where he learns to travel to other universes containing the Alchemax collider to use them to empower himself.
Gwen travels to Earth-1610 and reconnects with Miles, though she secretly tracks the Spot across dimensions. Miles secretly watches Gwen trace the Spot to Earth-50101 as Jess instructs Gwen to leave Miles behind. After Gwen opens a portal to Mumbattan, India, Miles follows her, and they team up with Spider-Men Pavitr Prabhakar and Hobie Brown against the Spot, who successfully absorbs the power of that world’s collider. Miles is struck with a vision of his father dying at the hands of the Spot before the Spot escapes. In the ensuing destruction of the collider, Miles saves the father of Pavitr’s girlfriend, a police captain, but Mumbattan begins falling apart from the disruption of a “canon event.” Members of the Spider-Society arrive to assess the damage of the dimensional anomaly, while Miles, Gwen, and Hobie are sent to their headquarters on Earth-928, where hundreds of Spider-people variants reside in a massive complex. They meet up with Miguel and are joined by Peter B. Parker and his daughter Mayday, as Miguel explains how each Spider-Man’s story contains “canon events,” such as the death of a police captain close to Spider-Man, and that straying from those events threatens the fabric of the multiverse.
Miles realizes the death of his father, who is set to be promoted to police captain in two days, is a canon event. Miguel argues with Miles before imprisoning him, but Hobie helps Miles break loose before using a portal to quit the Spider-Society. Miguel orders all of the Spider-People to apprehend Miles, resulting in a long, frenzied chase through the complex and surrounding city. Miguel eventually pins Miles down and reveals Miles is the original anomaly, as he was never supposed to become Spider-Man, and that world the spider that bit him came from has no Spider-Man. Miles flees and, with the help of Margo Kess / Spider-Byte, returns to what he believes is his home dimension. Miguel, seeing Gwen as a liability, ejects her from the Spider-Society. Gwen reconciles with her father, who has decided to resign as a police captain. Realizing that his resignation is evidence that canon can be safely averted, Gwen decides to aid Miles, leaving Earth-65 with a bootleg portal watch Hobie left for her.
As Miles returns to his apartment, he reveals to his mother that he is Spider-Man, whom she doesn’t recognize. After glitching, encountering his deceased uncle Aaron Davis and learning that his father has already died, Miles realizes that he is on Earth-42, the homeworld of the spider that bit him. Aaron interrogates Miles and is joined by the Miles of Earth-42, who has become the Prowler. Miguel, Jess, and Ben Reilly / Scarlet Spider travel to Earth-1610 in search of Miles just as the Spot arrives and begins his attack. After sending Ben to another dimension and speaking with Miles’ parents on Earth-1610, Gwen assembles a Spider-team to find Miles, consisting of Peter B., Mayday, Pavitr, Hobie, Margo, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham.
Development
By the end of November 2018, ahead of the release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) the following month, Sony Pictures Animation had begun developing a sequel due to the “incredible buzz” surrounding the project. The sequel was to continue the story of Shameik Moore’s Miles Morales / Spider-Man, working from “seeds [that were] planted” throughout the first film. Joaquim Dos Santos and David Callaham were set to direct and write, respectively, with Amy Pascal returning from the first film as producer. The other producers of the first film—Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Avi Arad, and Christina Steinberg—were all also expected to return in some capacities. The next month, Pascal revealed that the film would focus on Miles and Hailee Steinfeld’s Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman, exploring a romance between the characters that was cut from the first film, and that the sequel would be a “launching pad” for a previously announced female-focused spin-off film starring Steinfeld. Sony officially confirmed the sequel in November 2019, with a release date of April 8, 2022, with Lord and Miller returning as producers. In April 2020, Sony shifted the film’s release to October 7, 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February 2021, Miller said that he and Lord were working on the film’s screenplay with Callaham, and that Peter Ramsey would be an executive producer on the sequel after co-directing the first film. That April, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson were announced as co-directors alongside Dos Santos, and that all three had worked on the project since it began. (Thompson was production designer on the first film.) Arad and Steinberg were confirmed to return as producers with Lord, Miller and Pascal, with Alonzo Ruvalcaba co-producing and Aditya Sood, Into the Spider-Verse directors Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman, and Rebecca Karch and Brian Michael Bendis joining Ramsey as executive producers.
In December, Lord and Miller revealed that the film was being split into two parts: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) and (Part Two), because they had written the story they wanted to tell for the sequel and realized it was too much for one film. Work on both parts was taking place simultaneously. The sequels were renamed in April 2022, becoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. Their release dates were shifted then, with Across the Spider-Verse pushed back to June 2, 2023. Lord and Miller said that they had told Sony the sequel would be the same size as Into the Spider-Verse, but it ended up having the largest crew of any animated film ever, with around 1,000 people working on it. They added that the film had 240 characters and would take place across six universes.
- Shameik Moore as Miles Morales / Spider-Man:
An intelligent and rebellious teenage graffiti artist of African-American and Puerto-Rican descent who took over as the Spider-Man of Earth-1610 after the death of his reality’s Peter Parker.
- Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman:
A version of Gwen Stacy who is the Spider-Woman of Earth-65 and the drummer of a rock band, as well as Miles’s love interest
- Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson “Jeff” Morales: Miles’ African-American father and a police officer who originally disapproved of Spider-Man’s vigilante actions but now sees Spider-Man as a hero.
- Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales: Miles’ Puerto-Rican mother, a nurse. Vélez also plays an alternate version of Morales from Earth-42.
- Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man:
An older, disheveled, and brunette Earth-616 counterpart to the blond-haired blue-eyed Peter Parker native to Miles’ dimension, who was a reluctant mentor to Miles. Parker now has a daughter named Mayday with Mary Jane Watson, whom he reconnected with at the end of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).
- Jason Schwartzman as Dr. Jonathan Ohnn / The Spot:
A former scientist from Alchemax-turned-supervillain after an accident, whose body is now covered by interdimensional portals that allow him to travel through space and different universes. In the film, Jonathan turned to a life of crime because of not being offered any jobs due to his appearance and has no idea how to use his powers and/or be a proper villain. The Spot wasn’t originally the film’s main villain, but was suggested by producer Avi Arad. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller at first dismissed the idea, but after talking more about his powers, they made him the antagonist.
- Issa Rae as Jess Drew / Spider-Woman:
A pregnant African-American Spider-Woman from an alternate universe who is a member of the Spider-Society and rides a motorcycle. Unlike most Spider-People, Drew does not maintain a secret identity.
- Karan Soni as Pavitr Prabhakar / Spider-Man India:
An Indian version of Spider-Man from an alternate universe, inhabiting in Mumbattan (a portmanteau of Mumbai and Manhattan) who obtained his powers through magic instead of a spider bite.
- Daniel Kaluuya as Hobie Brown / Spider-Punk: A Black British, punk rock version of Spider-Man from an alternate universe that is ruled by a totalitarian regime and uses his guitar as his main weapon.
- Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara / Spider-Man 2099:
A muscular “ninja vampire” Spider-Man of Irish and Mexican descent from an alternate universe set in the year 2099, who is the leader of the Spider-Society, a group of Spider-People from alternate universes tasked with protecting the Multiverse. Isaac described Miguel as “the one Spider-Man that doesn’t have a sense of humor”, while the production team nicknamed him “Property Damage Spider-Man” due to the amount of destruction that he leaves in his wake.
June 2, 2023
