Furthermore, after so many recent Spider-Man films already released, the filmmakers needed to make this a story worth telling. In service of that, Lord, Miller and their collaborators blended computer animation with hand-drawn elements, used certain colouring and lighting techniques, and added comic book staples (such as text on-screen) to create a visual style that hadn’t been seen before. They wanted to use the medium of animation to create a film that looked like the inside of an old comic book, adapting the visual style of the original medium in addition to the characters and narratives. They approached their Spider-Man film with a desire to make it as different as possible from the Spider-Man films, comic book films, and animated films that came before it. Lord and Miller were established experts at taking potentially terrible ideas and producing shockingly good films, such as 21 Jump Street (2012) and The LEGO Movie (2014). The film was officially announced in April 2015, and it was made clear that it would take place in an alternate universe to the live action Spider-Man films. This was revealed to fans prematurely by the hack of Sony’s computer systems in November 2014. Sony Pictures approached producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller about a comedic animated Spider-Man film in 2014. And so, as equal parts love letter to comic book fans, relatable coming-of-age tale, inventive action comedy and animation masterpiece, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the most remarkable films of the century so far. It marries animation styles and techniques from across the world and the decades alongside elements taken directly from comic books to create a frenetic, colourful comic book come to life. as an animated film, Into the Spider-Verse presents some of the most unique, gorgeous pop-art ever put on film. As an action comedy, the film balances exciting, endlessly inventive action beats with the silliest bits of comedy imaginable.Īnd most importantly 4. As a coming-of-age story, the film presents an insightful story of a teenager grappling with mentors while trying to find his path through the world, as well as a thoughtful meditation on the nature of heroism. It presents this complex, ridiculous plot with humour, heart and relatability, making it one of the best superhero films ever made.Ģ. It explores inter-dimensional travel and the intersection of alternate versions of the same superhero, perhaps the pinnacle of geekiness in comic books. As a comic book superhero film, it presents the most out-there, ‘comic-booky’ plot ever adapted to film. One can approach Into the Spider-Verse from at least four different perspectives and it excels at all four. However, the most jaw-dropping, unique, original comic book film of 2018, the one that will doubtless be considered the most cinematically influential film of the bunch, is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Persichetti, Ramsey & Rothman, 2018). Indeed, comic book films in 2018 were varied, interesting, culturally significant, popular and plentiful. Even the most disappointing and regressive of the year’s comic book films, Venom (Fleischer, 2018), was a financial success. That was followed by Avengers: Infinity War (Russo Brothers, 2018), which was not as culturally important but was an even bigger global hit and an enormous blockbuster.Īfter that, Marvel films such as Deadpool 2 (Leitch, 2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018), as well as non-Marvel comic book films such as Incredibles 2 (Bird, 2018), Teen Titans Go! To the Movies (Michail & Horvath, 2018) and Aquaman (Wan, 2018), each distinguished themselves by following a unique approach and executing that approach very well. The year began with Black Panther (Coogler, 2018), which so perfectly hit the zeitgeist of America that it instantly became a cultural touchstone. The previous five articles in my film-by-film analysis of the Marvel Films have covered most of 2018, a year which was an undisputed high-water mark for comic book films.