(Annecy) More than 240 characters in six parallel universes: the directors of the animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verseexplain to AFP their plan to meet the expectations created by the first opus, awarded by an Oscar.
Posted at 10:06 a.m.
The first, unfinished images of this film, one of the most anticipated of 2023, received a standing ovation from the public at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
We find there the New York teenager Miles Morales, a young mixed-race Afro-American and Puerto Rican, who will wear the clothes of the man-spider.
Like the first part, Spider-Man: Next Generationreleased in 2019, the film is a demonstration of technical know-how, with different visual styles in the six parallel universes that the superhero will visit.
Among the scenes unveiled, a very impressive fight against a vulture inside the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the irruption of a Spiderwoman on a motorcycle, several months pregnant, and a double family intrigue, on the side of Miles’ parents , and those of his sidekick Gwen.
Miles Morales “remains the star, at the heart of the story. But we didn’t want to rest on our laurels and follow the easiest path,” Kemp Powers, one of the three co-directors, told AFP.
The team knows they are expected at the turn: the first film was a success “by word of mouth”, they point out, and created great expectations.
Fluid
“It’s an even more complex story than the first, where a lot of characters came into Miles’ world. This time, he’s the one traveling through a bunch of dimensions,” Powers continues.
The opportunity to use a whole range of different animation techniques, far from the sometimes standardized 3D of contemporary animation.
Tools that allowed the team to introduce a new super-villain, “The Spot”, with a body covered in black spots, an elusive figure that evolves and grows stronger as the plot progresses.
“Animation is a great medium because there are things you can only do like that,” says Justin Thompson, another co-director.
“’The Spot’ is a good example of what you can’t replicate with live action. His movements, his actions that interact with several characters at the same time, in live action, it would seem a little rotten, and there it is fluid! “, he continues.
“Except invasion of Martians”
Finally, “the only limit is time”, despite five or six years of production for each of the films, a third of which is due out in 2024, abounds Kemp Powers, “but our imagination has no limits”.
Beyond the technical aspect, the team wants to deliver a film “that everyone can grasp: from babies to grandparents, including everyone in between”, adds the third director, Joachim Dos. Santos.
Basically, “it’s the story of a child who has a relationship with his loving parents, of a 15-year-old who begins to spread his wings, and he spreads them a little across the ‘multiverse'” , he says.
This visual spectacle is “designed for the big screen”, insists Kemp Powers, questioned on the subject at a time when certain films are skipping the cinema box to land directly on the platforms.
He knows something about it: his previous film, DrunkOscar 2021 for best animated film, was deprived of theatrical release by Disney / Pixar.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be visible at the cinema, in June 2023… “except invasion of Martians or world war! “, he jokes.