Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was, against all that is explainable, a movie that was even better than Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Naturally that means there's a lot of anticipation for the final film in the series, and producer Chris Miller is certainly making sure we keep our expectations high, as he is promising a satisfying conclusion.
At a “For Your Consideration” event for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (via Jonathan Sim), Miller said he believes that Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse will be as emotional as the previous films, and that it will lead to a satisfying conclusion for the trilogy. Miller said…
We’re in production…we’re really excited about where the story is going, I think it’s a very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and it’s as emotional as the other ones…we’re knee-deep in it.
There was hope we’d have seen Beyond the Spider-Verse as early as next year, but it seems that schedule was more than a little too aggressive for the animation department. The Spider-Verse finale actually doesn’t have a release date currently, having been pulled from the schedule because the work was going to take much longer than originally expected. It's far from clear just how much work has been done on the movie at this point. We could see the film sometime in 2024, but it feels like 2025 is equally possible right now.
While we’re sure everybody is working quite hard, it’s good news that they’re not being pushed to their breaking point. We’ve heard too many horror stories about animators and other digital effects workers being pushed hard to meet release dates, which, in addition to not being good for the people, often leads to subpar work. Nobody wants to see that, especially with Spider-Verse.
The honest truth is that a satisfying conclusion to a trilogy is a particularly difficult thing to accomplish. For as many great movie trilogies as we’ve had, there have been quite a few that just didn’t stick the landing the way fans would have liked. This trilogy has been so good so far, which would make a disappointing finale that much more frustrating.
Of course, even if Chris Miller thinks that the new film will be just as emotional as the previous ones, that doesn’t mean they’re even done with it. It’s far from uncommon for animated movies to go through significant story changes during production, and we recently learned that the big twist at the end of the Across the Spider-Verse wasn’t originally planned, with the filmmakers only coiming up with the idea later.
Considering the ending of Across the Spider-Verse and where that left Miles Morales, as well as the rest of our heroes, the final movie will certainly hit the ground running. Whenever it finally arrives, fans will be ready.
