Posted in: Movies, Sony | Tagged: sony, spider-man: across the spider-verse, spider-man: beyond the spider-verse, star wars, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

How Empire Strikes Back Influenced Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

How Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back influenced the ending of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse in an important and unforeseen way.

When it comes to animated movies, they are usually meticulously planned out because they have to be. It takes such a long time to make them that you have to know where you're going, but since Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was once a single movie that was spit up into two, where the ending of part one was a little awkward and something that wasn't decided on until very late in the game. The problem is, when you're making half a movie, it's tough to find a spot to end that doesn't feel abrupt or like a letdown, but you also can't wrap things up because you are making half a movie by definition. In a huge story by Empire, producers/writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, along with the three directors, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos, talked about the ending of the film and how the scene with Gwen gathering all of Spider-People to save Miles wasn't part of the original ending.

"I was really worried about it until about six weeks before we finished the movie, and we added it," Thompson said. "The movie kind of fell flat at the end and was really a bummer. We had a screening, and thankfully, we were able to come up with the strategy of how to bring all these characters back together, and bring the Spot back — because he didn't come back — and show Rio and Jeff, and tag all the characters."

Regarding the tone of the ending in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Miller cited one of the most infamous cliffhanger endings in all of nerd cinema and how it helped shape that scene. You might be ending on a downer, and audiences will accept that, but you need to leave them with hope as well, and that scene of Gwen and the other Spider-People was the hope.

"We learned the same lesson that Empire Strikes Back learned," says Miller. "That movie used to end after he finds out the big twist and Han Solo gets taken away. They didn't have the scene where he gets the new hand, and they stare out at the star field. They did that as a reshoot because they felt like they needed a little bit of hope for the next film. We learned that lesson. We were like, "It's a cliffhanger; it's supposed to end on a thing where you're like, 'Oh no!'" So it ended with Miles meeting his alternate self, and he's trapped in an alternate dimension, oh no. But the audience really did need that moment of hope. Help is on the way. They're gonna figure something out. If we were smarter, we would have learned that earlier."

Right now, we don't know when Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse will be making its way to the big screen to resolve that cliffhanger, but it's so interesting to hear that the ending of this film was something that the filmmakers wrestled with. It makes sense; they didn't set out to make two films; it just sort of happened when they realized the film they were making was too big. If the team had gone in knowing that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse would be two films, they would have known the end point from the beginning. Since this was a later in the production decision, they had to work backward. That scene with Gwen and gathering familiar faces, some of which didn't get any screen time in Across the Spider-Verse, was excellent.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Summary, Cast List, Release Date

Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar®-winning Spider-Verse saga, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn's full-time friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on handling a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson with a screenplay by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, and David Callaham. It stars Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Jake Johnson, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya, Jason Schwartzman, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Greta Lee, Rachel Dratch, Jorma Taccone, Shea Whigham, and Oscar Isaac. It was released on June 2, 2023, and is currently available to purchase on digital.

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