If you’re still smarting from the realization last year that Across the Spider-Verse was setting up a big cliffhanger ending, then we’ve got some potentially bad news swinging your way: our return to the Spider-Verse might take a few more years.
Following trade reporting last night that Sony was going ahead with a fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man movie—and had tapped Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton to helm it—a new report from industry insider Jeff Sneider alleged that forward momentum on the live-action side of the Spider-Verse may have a drastic impact on the animated side, contributing to, among other factors, a potential delay on the third Spider-Verse film into as late as 2027.
According to Sneider, Sony had allegedly recently majorly pivoted on Beyond the Spider-Verse, scrapping “most” of the work on the film thus far for “creative reasons,” which would necessitate extensive new animation. That, combined with the apparent focus on Spider-Man 4—which is reportedly set to start shooting in early 2025—could see Beyond not hit theaters until either 2026, or 2027 to avoid two Spider-Man movies releasing in the same calendar year.
Beyond was initially scheduled to release in March 2024, less than a year after Across had debuted in summer 2023, after the two films were originally announced as being Across parts one and two. However, Sony indefinitely pulled the film from its schedule in July 2023, in the wake of reporting from Vulture that alleged an extremely poor working environment and crunch conditions during the making of Across the Spider-Verse, which itself had taken a lengthy, delayed path to release after Into the Spider-Verse dropped in 2018.
While Sony itself has yet to comment on the alleged release window for Beyond, Sneider’s reporting did receive some pushback on social media from Spider-Verse composer Daniel Pemberton. Responding to a repost of Sneider’s report from Discussing Film, the composer added “Don’t really ever want to weigh in on this sort of stuff, but, would you ever believe there could sometimes be stuff on the internet that might not always be particularly accurate?”
Don’t really ever want to weigh in on this sort of stuff BUT would you ever believe there could sometimes be stuff on the internet that might not always be particularly accurate? Hmmmm…
— Daniel Pemberton (@DANIELPEMBERTON) September 10, 2024
Likewise, executive producer Chris Miller also took to the platform to deny the reports. “Nothing has been scrapped,” Miller’s brief tweet alluding to the report reads. “The reels are coming along nicely.”
Nothing has been scrapped. The reels are coming along nicely.
— Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) September 10, 2024
Sneider, meanwhile, has continued to stand by his report in a series of posts on Twitter. io9 has reached out to Sony for comment on Sneider’s reporting, and will update this post if and when we hear back.
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