Our Annual Report swings on as we name Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson our Filmmakers of the Year. Find all the best in music, film, and TV from 2023 –including our 25 Best Films list — by checking out our full Annual Report here. You can also check out the full interview with the filmmaking trio on the latest episode of the Consequence UNCUT podcast, available wherever you listen or by using the player below.
Comic book movies have undoubtedly lost some of their panache over the last few years. With notable exceptions, they’ve largely become cut-and-paste, CGI smorgasbords lacking the character and soul of the pre-Endgame classics — homogenized approximations of art, like AI. But in the right, human hands — say, directing trio Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, our Filmmakers of the Year — superhero movies can still be, well, super.
More than just bucking the trend of comic book movies in 2023, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse completely reconceptualized the capabilities of animation. Calling it a visual feast doesn’t do justice to the intricate, dynamic, beautiful images of the story — and make no mistake, they are part of the story, not simply a canvas for it. Every color, every style choice is made with great deliberation to match the emotional momentum of the characters; look at the pastel watercolors in Gwen’s scenes with her dad, or the change from dark to electric hues when Miles decides to reject his destiny.
“When we were developing the story, we were constantly talking about what the characters are feeling. What is the internal story going on? Not the external idea,” explains Thompson during a four-way Zoom call with Consequence. “We really started to grab onto this idea of letting the picture actually describe what’s going on internally with the characters, because we have this amazing medium that we’re making this film in. We have absolute control of that. So we can ask ourselves what color would it be if Gwen is sad? What kind of colors make Miles feel comfortable?”
It’s a blend of earnest storytelling and art that corporate production machines rarely cultivate, and of which AI could (literally) never dream.
“I think the algorithm is a human heart,” Thompson says. “I think the algorithm is in the soul, and I think you have to let humans bring their soul to this kind of movie and it can only be done with fingerprints.”
There are thousands of fingerprints all over Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to 2018’s smash Into the Spider-Verse. Counting everyone involved in various departments — animation, sound, editorial, etc. — over 1,000 individuals worked on the film, the largest crew ever for an animated production.
“We gotta give a lot of credit to our leads on this film,” Powers says, his cohorts enthusiastically agreeing. Throughout the conversation, they name VFX supervisor Mike Lasker, art director Dean Gordon, production designer Patrick O’Keefe, head of character animation Alan Hawkins, and others. “It’s important for people to understand that there’s a lot of people on our team that none of the three of us have ever met because there are actually levels of supervisors who each have their own teams that are helping execute. The key thing that you really need to do is just have a great level of communication with your leads.”
Of course, that communication starts with the three directors. Each came to the project differently: Powers was looking for his followup to Pixar’s Soul, Dos Santos had relationships at Sony that led to a meeting with Spider-Verse co-mastermind Phil Lord, and Thompson had been a production designer on the first film. Similarly, each took a different focus on Across the Spider-Verse: Powers handled recording sessions with actors and story development, Dos Santos dealt with the storytelling art, and Thompson spearheaded production and visual design.
They each had their specialties, but their shared passion for the project brought their talents together. “The bad side of this is that you get people that don’t particularly like each other very much and it’s a war the entire time and it’s a pain,” says Dos Santos. “It very much was not that.”
The trio spent the first year-and-a-half of production “pretty much in every meeting together,” making decisions on every character or world design. After they took control of their individual silos, daily meetings kept everything on track. But that early process allowed them to understand each others’ taste, so not only were they able to predict how someone might respond to a particular decision, they trusted the instincts of their co-directors and team leaders.
“There are times when you have to separate yourself from, like, ‘Hey, there’s this specific thing that I want to do that’s very specific to me,'” Dos Santos explains. “You have to separate yourself from that instinct… And then also knowing when you’ve got to dig your heels in and say, ‘I’m sorry guys, we’re asking you to go to the well again.'”
“I know it sounds pretty chaotic,” adds Powers. “But when people ask me how did three guys direct this film, I’m like, how can you make this film without three people? Just because of the scale of what we had to do.”
Indeed, the scale was unprecedented. At 140 minutes, Across the Spider-Verse is the longest animated film ever produced by an American studio. Making a movie this complex and this long took utter commitment from everyone involved. “What was such a great joy about this movie is… we had limitless energy to make sure that we spent all of our time just trying to make the film better,” says Thompson. “And our crew knew that… it’s super rare that you get that kind of opportunity to go to this level of storytelling and this level of care where somebody does actually let you make a change… We treated this like a big budget independent film where we were constantly figuring out with each other, ‘Could this be better?'”
Dos Santos describes the work as “iterative,” with Thompson noting they went through at least 10 test screenings. Each time, they gauged audience reactions and adjusted scenes accordingly. Thompson refers to the chase scene in the 2099 world when Miles “has his big moment up on the train and says, ‘Nah, I’m gonna do my own thing.'”:
“That was in the movie from day one, but we had to iterate on it to get you to feel that moment where Miles says that. To make that land, and to make you really understand why he’s saying it, and to set that up all the way down in the first act. It took a lot of pushing and pulling, a lot of adjustments all along the story. So there’s little minute changes that are going to happen, and Kemp then has to go re-record with the actors, and we have to realign the animation, and the animated performance has to now react to this new acting performance.”
It’s an intricate, arduous process, one where even color palettes can be completely altered from one day to the next. But Powers, Dos Santos, Thompson, and all their teams were committed to servicing the story in the best way possible. The results speak for themselves, and they’ll hope to replicate them for the Beyond the Spider-Verse follow-up. Although the trio is expected to return for the threequel, they’re understandably mum about its status. “We do what’s in front of us because it’s the thing that we’re doing,” says Dos Santos. “That’s the only way you can get through these things sometimes.”
Sony hasn’t announced a new release date for Beyond after moving it from March 29th, 2024 in favor of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, but there’s every reason to believe it will be another stunning achievement with this group at the helm. If they can muster up the same level of passion they brought to Across, trust in their collaborators, and most importantly invest in the humanity of the story and the artistry, there’s no way it can’t be.
“It can only be done with holding pencils and pens in your hand and making the messy marks that eventually coalesce into beauty,” says Thompson. “And that is art, and that’s what we’re trying to make and we will continue to make.”
