Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is about eight months away, at least, and we’re already getting teases about the insanity that writer/producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller have in store.
Apparently, Gwen Stacy will face off with a few of her own variants in the trilogy-capper, despite that — checks notes — all the Spider-people are technically variants of each other, right? So haven’t we been seeing variants of Spider-Gwen this entire time? “Yes, of Spider-Gwen, but not of Gwen Stacy,” someone wearing a pocket protector is presumably saying aloud while reading this. Okay, then.
According to The Direct, Lord and Miller recently shared some information about the upcoming animated threequel on the Crew Call with Anthony D’Alessandro podcast. When asked if we would see more than one Gwen Stacy in Beyond the Spider-Verse, Lord said, “Currently, yes,” adding that the idea is at least “on the page.” However, Miller cautioned, “These things evolve as they go.”
Lord added he’s “very excited about” one of the Gwen variants. Miller said to his partner, “I know exactly the one you’re talking about. … [I]t is sort of plot-integral, I would say.”
Great, except it sounds as if they’re still at the stage of development where a “plot-integral” character who’s “on the page” might not make it into the “evolving” final product. This begs the question of whether Beyond the Spider-Verse is coming out next March, given that they still have to record dialogue and design obscenely complicated animation for an entire movie.
Even Hailee Steinfeld, the actor who voices Gwen Stacy, recently admitted that she hadn’t recorded any lines yet for Beyond, suggesting the need for reality-breaking antics to get this movie done on time.
Don’t blame us for being on edge about this: We’d be fine waiting another few years for the movie if Across the Spider-Verse didn’t end on a cliffhanger that sent us into the parking lot swearing under our breath. We’re pretty sure some little kids in Spidey T-shirts heard us, and we’re not proud of it, okay? We just really need some closure on this.