Daniel Kaluuya Saved Spider-Punk From ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Removal

Ask anyone who their favourite Spider-Man from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is and bet they’ll tell you Spider-Punk.

The chaotic, carefree, and anti-authoritarian Spider-Punk was an integral character in the sequel and became a fan-favourite for his attitude and spiky mohawk. Little do fans know, writer-producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller almost cut Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown aka Spider-Punk from the film.

Spider-Punk was just one of the many variants introduced in Across the Spider-Verse and the team was on debating on how necessary the character was. It wasn’t until they casted actor Daniel Kaluuya when the character was re-written and kept in the movie.

“He was in and out of the picture for a little while because we weren’t sure which elements we were going to stick in this part and which were going to migrate to the next movie,” said Lord.

“Some people were like, ‘Is there a way to simplify this? There’s so many characters. Do we really need Spider-Punk?’” Miller said. “But once we got to know Daniel, we rewrote the part so it became more necessary.”

According to co-director Kemp Powers, the animators used the actor’s voice as source material for the British punk hero in the feature’s early stages – before Kaluuya was even casted.

“As we were doing visual development on the character, we were actually using audio clips of interviews with Daniel Kaluuya,” explained Powers. “Daniel Kaluuya’s natural speaking voice was right in the pocket of that effortless cool we envisioned the Hobie character having from the beginning.”

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse starred Kaluuya, Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Karan Soni, Jake Johnson, Kimiko Glenn, Issa Rae and Oscar Isaac.

The third movie, Beyond the Spider-Verse, was scheduled to open on 29 March 2024, but is now delayed indefinitely due to the ongoing strikes.