Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has hit the headlines for all the right reasons – not only did it become Sony’s highest-grossing animation film, it also swung to a US$500 million haul at the global box office. As yet another weekend rolled around, the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse managed to reclaim the top spot at the weekend box office in the U.S, beating out Pixar’s Elemental (US$18.46 million) and The Flash (US$15.26 million).
But its success comes at a cost. While it brought in US$19.3 million in its fourth weekend in theatres, animators have opened up about the difficult working conditions, including numerous revisions and 11-hour days, seven days a week, that resulted in over 100 of them leaving the project. In a new report from Vulture, four former animators from the team attributed these issues to the management style of Phil Lord, who served as writer and producer on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
“As producer, Phil overrides all the directors,” said one animator. “They are obviously in charge of directing, but if Phil has a note that contradicts their note, his note takes precedence. They have to do what Phil says. So, there were constant changes and cuts. With Phil Lord, nothing is ever final or approved. Nothing was really set in stone. Nothing was ever done. Everything was just endlessly moving beneath our feet because they wanted it to be the best that it could be.”
More notably, Lord is reported to have trouble conceptualising 3D sequences during the planning stages – despite having worked on box office hits like The Lego Movie and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – and prefers to edit fully rendered animated work. Not only did this lead to a lot more work for the animators, it created a backlog in the late stage of production, as changes had to be made to already-approved sequences.
“It’s easy to make a movie if you just say, ‘Don’t plan anything’,” a second animator shared. “You tell the artists, ‘Come up with stuff. Create the footage and then I’ll decide which direction to go.’ It’s easier to do it that way. But it’s very destructive and time consuming.”
A third animator added, “Something like 90% of the shots in the trailer are not in the movie. We re-engineered or reanimated, had different characters doing the same thing. It was purely a sequence of cool ideas they made us slap together while they ‘rested’ the production.”
According to the animators, the reason behind delaying Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was due to this ‘rest’ period, where they “sat idle” for between three and six months while Lord tweaked things in the layout stage. The process led to crunch issues for the rest of production, including 11-hour days, 7 days a week, for over a year.
Sony Pictures refutes these claims, with former chairperson Amy Pascal – who remains a producer on the Spider-Man projects – saying the departure of over 100 animators isn’t surprising, considering Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse used over 1,000 animators to bring tons of Spider-People to the silver screen.
“One of the things about animation that makes it such a wonderful thing to work on is that you get to keep going until the story is right,” Pascal told Vulture. “If the story isn’t right, you have to keep going until it is.”
The animation industry has long suffered from harsh work conditions, from crunch to getting underpaid, and it’s a little disappointing to see the behaviour take form with one of Sony’s greatest visual masterpieces. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is set to close off Miles Morales’ journey with Beyond the Spider-Verse, slated for release on 28 March 2024, but the first animator interviewed by Vulture says it’s unlikely to drop by then.
“They’ve announced that Beyond the Spider-Verse will be released in March of next year. I’ve seen people say, ‘Oh, they probably worked on it at the same time.’ There’s no way that movie’s coming out then,” he said. “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.'”
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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