Whether it’s shoehorning Venom into Spider-Man 3 against Sam Raimi’s better judgement before disagreements led to him abandoning a fourth installment, overstuffing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to the detriment of the story or briefly withdrawing Tom Holland from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony have cultivated a reputation for being a little too hands-on when it comes to the studio’s most lucrative asset.
However, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have revealed that they’ve effectively been given free rein to do whatever they want in the animated sequel, which is no doubt partly due to the first installment winning rave reviews and winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the duo were asked if they’d faced any creative disagreements with the powers that be over the universes or variants of the title hero they wanted to include in Across the Spider-Verse, and the pair answered firmly in the negative.
“Honestly? No. We’re getting to do more or less everything we have ever wanted.”
Lord and Miller have a reputation for delivering acclaimed and irreverent comic adventures in both the live-action and animated realms, so the decision to give them the freedom to do whatever they wanted with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a call that’s almost definitely going to pay off handsomely from a critical and commercial perspective.