After the huge success of the first movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Academy Award-winning animation, is finally getting a sequel! Although plans for a continuation of the story were announced early after the 2018 release, earlier today, Sony dropped a surprise First Look at the sequel, titled Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part 1).

Join us as we watch this exciting teaser trailer and meet once again with our beloved – and now a little more grown-up – Miles Morales!

Across the Spider-Verse – Premise

As of now, very little is known of Across the Spider-Verse‘s plot. From what has been anticipated so far and from the first look we have gotten today, all we can tell is that our favourite Spider-manMiles Morales is suddenly dragged into a new adventure by none other than the one and only Spider-Woman, the fantastic Gwen Stacy. Together, they will have to travel across the multiverse with a new team of Spider-People and face a powerful villain.

 First Look

Revolution animation

I am personally incredibly excited for this movie! As we all will certainly remember, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won an Academy Award at the 2018 Oscars, finally – and deservedly – breaking Disney‘s winning streak after a whopping six years (more if you consider that before then, only one other non-Disney movie had managed to win for another five years).

I say deservedly because Into the Spider-Verse brought to animation a fresh, new and unprecedented approach that could have revolutionized the genre but that, sadly, Disney’s monopoly is still stifling.

Into the Spider-Verse‘s approach to animation deserves its own article when considering how complex and broad the work that’s been done for this movie was, something that I – as an artist but nowhere even in the spectrum of an animator – am not equipped to talk about. We can, though, definitely remember the striking look of the final product that walked us into what can be easily described as a moving, talking, comic book. With its bright imagery, its in-depth study of styles and artistic languages, there is not one single frame of this movie that doesn’t function as a full artwork all by itself. No, seriously, pause this movie literally anytime you want and you will be completely unable to find even one out-of-focus image. Each and every single frame has been handcrafted to perfection and refined for an overwhelming final look that is simply unforgettable.

Let’s also remember that the production of Spider-Verse also prompted the creation of new software that fused together traditional line-drawing and computer animation to further highlight the comic book origins of the character and the story. We could be talking about the technical aspects of this movie for hours and we wouldn’t get even close to finished.

Cast

We don’t know yet who’s definitely going to be returning to the story, but we can make a couple of guesses. In the trailer, we immediately meet our main protagonist, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), who was also the carrying character for the first movie, and we can already predict the return of Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) as she is the one to bring Miles back into the fold. Some of the action sequences of the trailer also seem to feature Miguel O’Hara, or Spider-Man 2099, who we first met in the post-credit scene at the end of the first movie and who was voiced by Star Wars’ Poe DameronOscar Isaac.

The other Spider-People from Into the Spider-Verse like Peter B. Parker (New Girl‘s Jake Johnson), Peter Porker (comedian John Mulaney), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), Spider-Man Noir (shockingly, Nicholas Cage) have not been featured in the teaser but who knows?! Not everything can be given away in a trailer and I’m sure we’ll definitely be getting some beloved returns and hopefully another quick glance into Miles’ family life, too. In addition, among the supposed new characters, some cast listings also include Issa Rae in the role of Jessica Drew (Earth-616‘s own Spider-Woman).

Release Date

As announced in the First Look Teaser, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part 1), will be coming to U.S. theatres on October 7th and internationally around the same date, we would expect.

Another exciting thing about the release of the First Look, and therefore of the sequel’s title, is the inclusion of the very interesting (Part 1) which already anticipates that this won’t be the last time we get to dive into this universe- pardon, this Spider-Verse quite yet. I, for one, could not be happier at the prospect.

I highly recommend catching up to the first movie if you haven’t seen it yet and to already make plans to watch this second one in theatres. I did so back in 2018 and would not change the experience for the world. It is a truly magnificent work of animation and art in general and there’s very little that can do it as much justice as a big cinema screen.

Are you as excited as I am about this announcement? Let me know in the comments and tell me what you thought of the first one if you’ve seen it! And don’t forget to keep up with Vampire’s Tears through our social media channels!

Autore