In case you didn’t know, there are hundreds of alternate versions of Spider-Man. Some of them are definitely more interesting than others, and one of the more interesting ones is definitely Spider-Punk, who made a very fleshy cameo in Across the Spider-Verse. Turns out that almost didn’t happen.
Before we get into that, here’s some background info on Spider-Punk in case you’re not familiar. Spider-Punk is Hobie Brown from Earth-138. He was bitten by a spider that came into contact with some toxic waste, and in his world, everything is messed up because powerful entities abuse their authority.
In the comics, one of his biggest wins came when he defeated America’s fascist regime and President Osborn (yes, that one). As is the Spider-Punk way, he smashed a guitar over his head. Very Punk.
Spider-Punk has a significant role in Across the Spider-Verse, but that wasn’t always the case. In a dive on the character by EW, filmmakers revealed just how he came to be.
Writer-producer Phil Lord said that Spider-Punk was “in and out of the picture for a little while because we weren’t sure which elements we were going to stick in this part and which were going to migrate to the next movie.”
That changed when producers met Oscar winning actor Daniel Kaluuya, who brought his own flair to the role.
“We realized that he had to be Hobie Brown, no matter the cost,” Lord said. “And Hobie had to be in the movie because that personality needed to be part of the story.”
Writer-producer Chris Miller reiterated the idea that no one was really sure whether Spider-Punk should be in the film, not at first anyway.
“Some people were like, ‘Is there a way to simplify this? There’s so many characters. Do we really need Spider-Punk?'” The decision maker turned out to be Kaluuya, who was so good in his audition that they “rewrote the part so it became more necessary.”
He became someone who acts as a kind of role model for Miles Morales.
“He’s a catalyst for so many things in this movie, which is why I think he ended up being such a breakout star,” Powers said. “No matter how cool the character design looks, he really earned his way into this film because every character has to be in service of Miles’ story.”
When they were designing the character they used actual audio clips of Kaluuya.
“Daniel Kaluuya’s natural speaking voice was right in the pocket of that effortless cool we envisioned the Hobie character having from the beginning,” Powers said.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently finishing up a run in theaters. It will eventually land on Netflix.