UPDATE: ‘Spider-Verse’ composer Daniel Pemberton is denying Sneider’s reporting as “not particularly accurate.” However, Sneider is sticking by his report, and calls Pemberton’s comments the “worst f*ckin’ denial of all-time.”
EARLIER: If ‘Spider-Man 4’ is ready to shoot early next year, with a 2026 release date an inevitability, then it’s a whole other story for Sony’s next animated “Spider-Verse’ movie.
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was this huge commercial and critical success back in the summer of 2023. The sequel ‘Beyond the Spider-Verse’ was initially supposed to be released theatrically in March 2024, but was then abruptly removed from the schedule.
Jeff Sneider is now being told that Sony has scrapped most of ‘Beyond the Spider-Verse’ for “creative reasons,” and that the movie is now unlikely to release before 2027 given the detailed animation it requires. The ‘Beyond the Spider-Verse’ team is apparently “relieved” by the scrapping as they will now have more time to work on the sequel.
Might this delay have to do with creative duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s recent clash with Sony over, among other things, “Spider-Noir”? The duo had signed a five-year, nine-figure deal with the studio in 2019, with the idea being that they'd oversee a slate of Spider-Man projects. Sony ended up not renewing their contract because of this clash.
Sony is coming off comic book box-office bombs, “Morbius” and “Madame Web,” and Lord/Miller were the only creatives to turn in acclaimed Spidey content for them.
Last year, Vulture reported about Lord and Miller’s controversial managerial style while overseeing “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”? Crew members — ranging from artists to production executives who had worked anywhere from five to a dozen years in the animation business — described the process of making the $150M Sony project as “uniquely arduous, involving a relentless kind of revisionism” and “death by a thousand paper cuts.”
Lord and Miller recently wrapped production on “Project Hail Mary,” starring Ryan Gosling, which is set to be their first directorial effort since exiting ‘Solo.’ This means that the last film they actually directed was actually 2014’s “22 Jump Street.”