[This story contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. ]
These days, Kemp Powers often juggles. Coming to an end $120.7 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , United The director just got back from San Francisco and helped his son move out of his college dorm.
“I’m in LA right now and I’m busy getting a lot done,” Powers told The Hollywood Reporter Wednesday morning. In addition to its box office success, the Spider-Man sequel has received critical and audience acclaim, following in the footsteps of its Oscar-winning debut Spider-Man: Enter the world of Spider-Man .
“When you work on these things for years, sitting in a dark room with people, you get to a point where you don’t even know if it’s good or bad. Is it just us, you say? Seeing the love people poured out on it, it’s really a testament to perfecting it. In fact, for Spider-Verse One of the best-kept secrets from the team came late in the game. It was a major cameo by Donald Glover, who was in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe as Aaron Davis MCU movieSpider-Man: Homecoming.
While Glover has yet to reappear in the MCU, the brief cameo always left fans hoping Miles Morales’ world would join Tom Holland’s. In Spider-Verse In the sequel, Glover appears briefly as an alternate version of the Prowler, imprisoned at Miguel O’Hara’s (Oscar Isaac) Spider HQ in York, Nueva. Premieres June 2 Glover’s cameo was one of the finishing touches to the movie, which was filmed two months before its release date on April 5.
“You It has to be understood that these things happen spontaneously,” Powers said.
Famous for debut success2013 stage show Miami Nights , Bowers has had success in various media , from theater to live-action filmmaking to animation (he also co-directed and co-wrote the Oscar-winning Pixar animated feature soul). Miami Nights was later adapted for the screen by Regina King , for which Powers received another Best Screenplay Oscar nomination.
“Personally, coming from the stage and writing really helped to do a lot of these performances directly with a lot of our actors,” Powers said of his theater background when said. “It’s about taking action in the storytelling, even when it’s being discussed, not just people swinging from the internet. Also never lose sight of character. You remind yourself all the time. All the other big, overblown things that happen Things, no matter how big they are, have to serve the character, whether it’s Miles or Gwen or Peter or Hobby.”
Through Spider-Man Universe brings back Shameik Moore, Hayley Stanfield , Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Velez, Mahershala Ali and Jake Johnson, including franchise newcomers like Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya , Jharrel Jerome and Jason Schwartzman. It’s a mix of voice-over veterans and established screen actors new to the world of animation.
Powers spent most of his time in the studio directing actors for films. Rarely in animation, some actors recorded together and were able to play each other’s performances.
“A good example is the nearby scene ending when George Stacy (Shay Whigham) and Gwen (Stanfield) return. It’s a very dramatic moment,” Powers said. “We recorded them separately, but then we also decided to go ahead and record Shea and Hailee together, which really elevated that scene. No expense was spared to extract the best, truest emotion out of it. The project—some of the actors didn’t Know who they’re sharing scenes with – including some people they know in real life.
“At the end, I remember recording Mahershala, [who played Uncle Aaron] and His scene, talking about other Miles Morales, I was like, you know who plays other Miles Morales, right? He said, “No,” and I said, “It’s Jharrel Jerome, I think you know him from Moonlight,” Powers recalled. “He’s like, ‘That kid?!’ Because everyone’s sworn to secrecy. I trust the actors—they do keep secrets.”
In the film Out of dozens of cameos and meme references, the director is surprised by what hits the audience the most. “Honestly, one of the biggest jokes was LEGO Spider-Man,” he said. “When Miguel suddenly puts on his wristband and says, ‘You’re one of our best Peters,’ and he boo, boo. It’s one of the biggest jokes in the whole movie.”
While it’s fun to play with references, Powers stresses that the overarching story is what counts. “At the end of the day, Miles Morales and his family have always been our North Star,” the director said. “When it comes out, you spit out more funny jokes and stuff like that. A lot of times, these things happen very naturally in the moment. Like it’s a coincidence that Metro Boomin ended up being a character and he did the soundtrack, Phil [Lord] and Chris [Miller] were like, ‘Hey, would you like to come record a few lines?'”
He added: “Ultimately, we’re going to make ourselves Laughing. We sat there looking at this in the clip, and we joked with each other. I think, at least in our own eyes, we both thought we were pretty classy people.”
Just like the first movie, Across the Spider-Verse recruited three directors. This time, it’s helmed by Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson. Powers and dos Santos are new to the series, while Thompson served as art director on the first film. When production starts in the middle of COVID-42 During the quarantine period, the co-directors did not meet and work together for an entire year. While each director brings their own unique strengths and expertise to the film, Powers noted that they all “really did it all.”
Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson Monica Chip/Getty Images
The directorial trio will return for a third part 1235506319Spider-Man: Beyond Spider-Verse,
Scheduled for release in March 19, 2021. Considering that the second film took nearly five years to complete, and the third is slated for less than a year, it’s an ambitious turnaround for the team. While filmmakers previously said they weren’t sure if the film would be released on that release date, Powers declined to comment on the final chapter of the Miles Morales story.
“I can’t really comment on the third one,” said the director. “I’m sorry to give you a big non-answer. But really, it’s just because people are so desperate for information that everything ends up being misread or misquoted. I swear to silence. As soon as you say Beyond the Spider-Verse , I shut my mouth.”
As for whether the writer’s strike affected A third is in the works, and Powers again declined to comment. In the meantime, the directors are proud of what they’ve accomplished with the sequel. “I think we made a really good movie,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy.”
Paving the way for Part 3, Traveling through the Spider-Verse Finishing on a shocking cliffhanger, Miles faces what may be his greatest challenge yet.
At the film’s climax, Miles discovers that his very existence in the Spider-Verse was a mistake—the radioactive spider that bit him was meant to find another One dimension of the other’s. In the final minutes of the movie, Miles returns home, or so he thinks, to save his father from a tragic fate. It turned out that he was not at home at all. He’s on Earth-42, the origin of his radioactive spiders, without Spider-Man, things went wrong. Miles’ father Jefferson died, not Uncle Aaron. Without the radioactive spider, this alternate version of Miles, known as Miles G. Morales, is a villain – the Prowler. Voiced by Jerome, Miles G. and Uncle Aaron capture our Miles, while Gwen rallies a familiar Spider-Man squad to rescue their friends lost in the multiverse.
“We tweaked it a little bit after we screened it for the audience, but the suspense was there for a long, long time,” Powers said . “It was about making sure that while we did end on a cliffhanger, we had full emotional arcs for the main characters and Gwen within a few miles, so that we could see them develop from one place at the beginning of the movie to another. place at the end of the movie, and they have a full emotional arc.”It’s such an exciting character, it’s actually hard for us to keep it a secret,” Powers said of his replacement Miles. “Oh, man , the design is so different, it’s a visual departure. And explore what kind of child Miles would become if he was taught by his uncle in a different world without a father? For the last person to see Miles G. Morales, don’t judge a book by its cover. There’s a lot to learn about this character. It’s a very, very interesting character. “
