Has ‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’ been delayed?

An almost magical feat, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a masterclass in animation when it first premiered in 2018. Featuring Miles Morales in his feature film debut, the movie brought audiences into a wild world of Spider-People.

But since then, the Spider-Verse stock has significantly plummeted. Instead of a cut-and-dried sequel, Sony decided to split the follow-up into two films, which seems to be the status quo for most franchise films these days. Across the Spider-Verse premiered in 2023, but instead of focusing on Miles (Shameik Moore), the film gave Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) more agency than its lead. Numerous fan-favorite characters such as Spider Noir (Nicolas Cage) and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney) were largely missing, and the film did a massive disservice to Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), inexplicably turning him into a villain. Fleshed-out characters such as Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) were overshadowed by a team of Spider-People who go against everything that being Spider-Man is all about.

Instead of living by Peter Parker’s adage of doing the right thing no matter the cost, the coalition of Spider-People becomes corrupt and turns against Miles. Gwen, most of all, is a traitor against her friend. Across the Spider-Verse concludes with Gwen finally getting with the program and corralling the best Spider-People to help Miles, making the film feel like a big filler episode leading to the second part. And even with all the theatrics, the Spider-Verse‘s problems were far from over.

While Beyond the Spider-Verse is one of the most anticipated releases, the third film has been consumed with production issues. The original release date of summer 2024 came and went with no signs of when the film would be released. Initially, this delay was due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA Hollywood strikes, which delayed many productions. Nevertheless, as other features continued on, Spider-Verse remained stagnant. As fans wait in earnest, rumors have run wild about when Beyond the Spider-Verse can be expected.

Is the Beyond the Spider-Verse delay real?

The film’s delay has recently been exacerbated by news of in-house tension. According to industry insider Jeff Sneider, Beyond the Spider-Verse has had so many creative differences that fans may have to wait until 2o27 to see a final product. He claimed that production had been halted because most of the story had to be overhauled. This statement was neither confirmed nor denied by Sony, but someone spoke up for the animated film on X (formerly Twitter).

Daniel Pemberton, a composer for the film, retweeted these allegations, with his own pointed response. He didn’t outright say that the claims were false, but it isn’t hard to read between the lines. Pemberton’s social media indicates that there are no such production issues. However, it is hard to take this at face value when there is no secret about hold-ups in the past.

Last year, several animators came forward and confessed to Vulture that they were enduring difficult working conditions. Animators were pushed to their limits, forcing at least 100 of them to quit before the film was finished. The remaining animators worked every day for over 10 hours to complete the film. It is no secret that the Spider-Verse films have had production issues, so it isn’t much of a stretch to believe further delays. At this time, the delays for Beyond the Spider-Verse remain a he-said, he-said situation.