Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

With ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ being released digitally this week (though the Blu-Ray release is not till March 19th), fans are ready for the Academy Award winning film to be readily available to stream and watch over and over again. Plus, now they can check out the bonus features, which are sure to give insight into how the amazing film was crafted. Thanks to a recent press day to celebrate the digital release of the movie, we now know that there is a special extended cut of the film included as well, which will show off many scenes originally cut from the movie. While speaking to Cinemablend about the digital release of the film, and the inclusion of the extended, “Alt-Universe Cut,” one of the directors, Rodney Rothman, explained:

“[Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse] had an unusual amount of material at every stage of production. So, an insane amount of storyboard material, like insane, like break your high end edit systems insane. An insane amount of layout, an insane amount of finished animation that didn’t make it into the movie… an unusual amount. So the Alt-Universe Cut contains a bunch of that stuff that we chose not to put in the movie, but that in an alternate universe easily could have ended up in the movie. So, uh, that’s kind of the premise behind it…One of the cool things about this movie, and especially since it’s been released, is that we do actually like to share a lot about the process of making it, and the different iterations we went through because so many people worked for so long in this movie, and we did really try a lot of different things. So that version of the movie is like a great window into how the movie evolved, and different things that we were working on. And for any filmmakers out there, anyone interested in our movie or movies generally it will be interesting. I know I love that stuff when I see it.”

Rothman also discussed the addition of the roommate friendship Miles originally had with Ganke in the film, which they changed once they saw Peter and Nate’s relationship in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming:”

“The alt version is more beholden to the idea that Miles and Ganke were buddies and roommates, and there’s a lot more of roommate stuff happening. And what we ended up running into was just to two things. It was just like, ‘Oh, wow. Homecoming, Ned – very similar to Ganke.’ Really. And then, ‘Well, maybe it’s actually better if Miles experiences these things without a really well-educated Sherpa holding his hand through all the powers coming on and everything,’ and it ended up helping us out for that place where Peter comes into the movie.”

Rothman was soon joined in this talk by his fellow directors, Bob Persichetti, and Peter Ramsey, who shared their love of the original Miles/Ganke relationship, and how they felt it could have been a movie all by itself:

“Bob Persichetti: And I will say this, though, there was a version that’s not exactly the Alt-Universe version, but we had a version of the first act a long, long time ago with Ganke in it fully, and the relationship between those two guys was amazing.

 

Peter Ramsey: You could’ve watched a whole movie that never and had a Spider-Man.

 

Bob Persichetti: It would just been like no multiverse. That would have been a very different thing.

 

Peter Ramsey: They were very entertaining.”

The directors were also excited for audiences to see one scene, dubbed the ‘Billboard Scene,’ which had been in the movie for almost 2 years before they ultimately decided to cut it:

“Bob Persichetti: You’re going to see, there’s one scene, the billboard scene, where it’s Miles and Peter talking, and it’s like 90% animated, and it’s beautiful animation.

 

Peter Ramsey: And that was probably in the movie for like two years, right?

 

Bob Persichetti: Totally, totally. And at the end it was like we have to cut it out. And we were all so in love with it. And we we’re just like, ‘The movie is better without it.’ And so I think everybody will get to see that, and they’ll get to understand sort of the weird process that we go through where we make movies as if it’s just a script. But we’re actually making it, and then we just throw the pages away, except there’s a little more than pages.”

Are you excited to see the Alt-Universe Cut? Will you be purchasing ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ now that is available? Do you think it deserved the best Animated Picture Oscar? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!