This morning Vulture has done an extensive article on “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” speaking with several crew members who claim unsustainable working conditions are behind the acclaimed animated feature.
The outlet’s sources indicate a “relentless kind of revisionism” led to approximately 100 artists exiting the movie before its completion, with the complaints circling producer Phil Lord’s management style and both his and his producing partner Chris Miller’s alleged preference to edit fully rendered and already-approved work rather than doing such revisions earlier on during development and storyboarding stages.
The outlet talked with four artists and animators, many of them animation veterans with plenty of experience on films of this size, who worked on the project. They indicate animators were hired in the spring of 2021 and were forced to sit idle for months while “Lord tinkered with the movie”. Then they were pushed to work more than eleven hours a day, seven days a week, for more than a year to make up for time lost.
In addition, pieces of work were revised as much as five times during the final rendering stage. One animator said: “In every movie I’ve worked on, there have been revisions. You’re always working on a movie that is evolving. But definitely not on this level.”
Sony executives dispute these claims, with producer Amy Pascal saying over a thousand artists and techs worked on “Across the Spider-Verse”, and so it’s “unsurprising” that as much as 10% of that would choose to depart the film, which she admits involved major narrative and visual overhauls. She adds: “If the story isn’t right, you have to keep going until it is… I guess, Welcome to making a movie.”
Sony Pictures Imageworks GM Michelle Grady says that Lord is the main messenger for editorial changes coming from the film’s three co-directors, executive producers, Miller, and the studio, and so is a “convenient target for worker ire”.
One animator says there’s “no way” that “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” will be arriving in March next year, saying that:
“There’s been progress on the pre-production side of things. But as far as the production side goes, the only progress that’s been made on the third one is any exploration or tests that were done before the movie was split into two parts. Everyone’s been fully focused on Across the Spider-Verse and barely crossing the finish line. And now it’s like, Oh, yeah, now we have to do the other one.”
Another animator says: “Phil does have good ideas. He speaks creatively really well, and listening to Phil can be inspiring. But the process is not inspiring”. Sony representatives declined to comment to the outlet as to whether the third ‘Spider-Verse’ film will be released on time.
For the full piece, head on over to Vulture.
