Coming off the $120.7 opening for Spider-Man Across the Spider Universe, co-director Kemp Powers returned from San Francisco, where he helped his son move out of his college dorm.

“I’m here in L.A. right now, scrambling to get a lot of stuff done,” Powers said. The Spider-Verse sequel received rave reviews from critics and audiences, following in the footsteps of the Oscar-winning debut film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

 

“When you work on these things for years, sitting in dark rooms with people, you get to a point where you don’t even know if it’s good or bad anymore. You’re like, are we the only ones? It’s really validating to see the outpouring of love for it,” says Powers.

The team worked up until the last minute to perfect it. One of the secrets came late in the game for the Spider-Verse team. It’s a cameo from Donald Glover, who previously appeared in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe as Aaron Davis in 2017 MCU Spider-Man: Homecoming.

While Glover has yet to appear again in the MCU, the brief cameo always left fans hoping the door would be open for the world of Miles Morales to join Tom Holland’s universe. In the Spider-Verse sequel, Glover briefly appears as an alternate version of the Prowler, locked up in Miguel O’Hara’s (Oscar Isaac) Spider headquarters in Nueva York. Ahead of a June 2 premiere date, Glover’s cameo was one of the finishing touches on the movie, filmed just two months prior on April 5.

Known for the critical success of his debut 2013 stage play One Night in Miami, Powers has worked his way across every medium, from theater to live-action to animation (he also co-directed and co-wrote the Oscar-winning Pixar animation feature Soul).

One Night in Miami was adapted for the screen by Regina King in 2020, and Powers received another Oscar nomination for best screenplay.

“Personally, coming from the stage and playwriting really lent itself to working directly with a lot of our cast on a lot of these performances,” Powers says of his theater background. “It’s about having action in storytelling, even when it’s discussions, not just someone swinging from a web. Also never losing sight of character. You remind yourself all the time. All these other big, bombastic things that happen, no matter how big they are, have to be in service of the characters, whether it’s Miles or Gwen or Peter or Hobie.”

Powers spent much of his time on the film directing actors in the recording studio. In a rarity for animation, some of the actors recorded together and were able to play off of one another’s performances.

“A great example of that would be the scene near the end with George Stacy (Shea Whigham) and Gwen (Steinfeild) when she returns. It’s a pretty dramatic moment,” says Powers. “We recorded them separately, but then we also decided to go ahead and put Shea and Hailee together for a recording session, and it really elevated that scene. It’s whatever it takes to pull the best, most authentic emotional performance out of it.”

With the varying schedules of actors in the recording studio — and the secrecy surrounding the project — some actors didn’t know who they were sharing scenes with.

“At the end, I remember recording Mahershala, who plays Uncle Aaron, and his scene, talking about the other Miles Morales, and I was like, you know who plays the other Miles Morales? He’s like, ‘No,’ and I said, “It’s Jharrel Jerome, you know him from Moonlight,” recalls Powers. “He’s like, ‘That kid?!’ Everyone is so sworn to secrecy. I give actors credit–they really do keep it secret.”

Powers emphasizes that the overarching story takes ultimate priority. “At the end of the day, Miles Morales and his family have always been our North Star,” the director says. “As it flushes out, that’s when you do a lot more spitballing of funny gags and things like that. A lot of times those things come about very organically in the moment. Like Metro Boomin ending up being a character was a coincidental thing where he was doing the soundtrack, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller were like, ‘Hey, you want to come record a couple of lines?’”

He adds: “Ultimately, we’re trying to make ourselves laugh. We’re sitting there watching this in edit, and we’re cracking each other up. I’d like to think that we all feel like we’re people who have pretty good taste.”

Across the Spider-Verse enlisted three directors: Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson.

While Powers and Dos Santos were new to the franchise, Thompson had worked on the first film as a production designer. At the start of production in the middle of COVID-19 quarantine, the co-directors didn’t meet one another in person for a full year into working together. And while each director brings their own unique strengths and expertise to the film, Powers notes that they all “really do everything.”

The directing trio will return for third installment Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, set for release on March 29, 2024.

Considering the fact that the second film took nearly five years to complete, a third installment slated for less than a year away is an ambitious turnaround for the team. While the filmmakers have previously said they’re not sure if the film will make that release date, Powers declined to speak on the final chapter in Miles Morales’ story.

“I can’t really comment at all on the third one,” says the director. “I’m sorry to just give you a big ol’ non answer. But really, it’s only because people are so desperate for information, and everything kind of ends up getting misread or misquoted. I’ve been sworn to silence. As soon as you say Beyond the Spider-Verse, my mouth closes.”

As to whether or not the writer’s strike has affected the ongoing production for the third installment, Powers declines to comment once more. In the meantime, the director is proud of what they’ve accomplished with the sequel. “I think we made a really good movie,” he says. “And that’s not an easy thing to do.”

Paving the way for the third installment, Across the Spider-Verse leaves off on a shocking cliffhanger, as Miles faces off against what is likely to be his greatest challenge yet.

At the climax of the film, Miles discovers that his very existence within the Spider-Verse is a mistake — the radioactive spider that bit him was meant to go to someone else in an alternate dimension. In the final minutes of the film, Miles returns home, or so he thinks, to save his father from a tragic fate. Turns out, he’s not home at all. He’s on Earth-42, the origin place of his radioactive spider, where things have gone awry without Spider-Man. Miles’ father Jefferson is dead instead of Uncle Aaron. Left without a radioactive spider, this alternate version of Miles, known as Miles G. Morales is a villain — the Prowler. Voiced by Jerome, Miles G. and Uncle Aaron capture our Miles, while Gwen assembles a familiar team of Spider-Man’s to save their friend, lost in the multiverse.

There’s more to come from Miles G. Morales. “It was such an exciting character, it was actually hard for us to keep it a secret,” Powers says of the alternate Miles. “The design is so different, it’s such a visual departure. And to explore how Miles might have developed if he were in different world where he didn’t have his father, he was mentored by his uncle, what kind of kid would he be? For people who see Miles G. Morales at the end, don’t judge a book by it’s cover. There’s a lot to learn about that character.”