The highly-anticipated sequel to Marvel’s hit animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse finally starts production, according to the film’s lead animator.
The award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse made its way to theaters around a year and a half ago, quickly becoming one of the most beloved animated superhero movies of all time.
Naturally, fans demanded a sequel which was eventually announced via Twitter in November of last year. The official Spider-Verse account revealed the sequel’s release date which was initially set to April 8, 2022, then later delayed to October of the same year.
The Spider-Verse hype was left in a bit of a lull since then, until just a few days ago when the movie’s lead animator Nick Kondo tweeted the words “first day on the job”, signaling the kick-off of the long-awaited next installment.
What to expect from part two
First day on the job! pic.twitter.com/qfqcCAi9wF
— Nick Kondo 近藤 (@NickTyson) June 8, 2020
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse capped off an incredible adventure by sending back each of the film’s protagonists to their respective multiverse, with Spider-Gwen still trying to find a way to remain in touch with Miles.
In trademark Marvel fashion, the animated movie had a doozy of an after-credits scene, showing off fan-favorite Miguel O’Hara—better known as Spider-Man 2099—and his assistant Lyla, which is short for “LYrate Lifeform Approximation.”
Lyla explains to Miguel how the Spider-Verse was saved, albeit barely, and provides the futuristic Spider-Man with a time-traveling device.
Awesome that #Spiderverse2 has started production! Hope we get to see more of Miguel O'Hara (spidey 2099) One of my favorite spider-man costume designs. @SpiderVerse pic.twitter.com/nb8OL8V3fN
— Chad Larsson (@ChadLarsson) June 9, 2020
Miguel then proceeds to use the gizmo to meet the 1967 version of the wall-crawler, resulting in a hilarious recreation of the “Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man” meme.
As of now, not much is known about the sequel’s premise, though it is highly likely that Spider-Man 2099 will play a large part in it. What that role is and whether or not any of the characters from the previous film will be returning remains to be seen.
Who is Spider-Man 2099?
Miguel O’Hara is the future iteration of Spider-Man from the year 2099, who happens to be a genius geneticist residing in what would then be known as Nueva York.
Eventually, Miguel becomes the Genetics head of a mega-corporation known as Alchemax and is tasked with creating a new breed of super-soldier known as “Corporate Raiders.” The geneticist attempts to achieve this by recreating the powers of the legendary Spider-Man.
After a human trial results in the death of a test subject, Miguel tries to resign from the project but is blackmailed by Vice-President Tyler Stone who injects Miguel with an illegal drug called Rapture that bonds itself to the user’s DNA.
https://twitter.com/TheCapecrusade1/status/1269219643501264897
With the looming threat of Tyler selling him out to the police, Miguel sneaks inside Alchemax and attempts to use the machine from his experiments (since it contained his DNA) to get rid of the Rapture.
Unfortunately, the machine is sabotaged by a spiteful subordinate by the name of Aaron Delgado, which ends up altering Miguel’s DNA to 50% spider, providing him with the Spider-Man-like abilities he was looking to reproduce.
It’ll be great to see how they include Miguel O’Hara in the upcoming Spider-Verse movie, and to what degree the character will remain faithful to its comic book roots. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2 looks to be an even bigger adventure than its predecessor.
Image courtesy of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse/Twitter