The madness of the multiverse has now been unleashed on the comic book movie genre, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse led the way. With the sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One), on the way, writers and producers Chris Miller and Phil Lord have teased a potential crossover with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Speaking on a recent episode of the HappySadConfused podcast, Miller responded to the idea of the MCU and the Venom-Verse bleeding into the Spider-Verse with a pragmatic “why not?”

"The Multiverse is big and wide. And all things grow. ... Why would you think a Multiverse, in which many things are possible, that [those things are] not related?"

Miller’s creative partner, Phil Lord, then chimed in with a more jovial comment saying, "Everything's possible except for this one thing that everyone wants." There is no stopping the multiverse now, and with Spider-Man: No Way Home demonstrating the kind of success and crowd-pleasing moments that it can lead to in the MCU, on top of the likes of Venom, Morbius, and Kraven the Hunter due to launch Sony’s own shared multiverse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) would be remiss not to add its own brand of multiversal shenanigans into the mix.

Balancing Storytelling Within the Multiverse Has Proven to be a Challenge for Into the Spider-Verse 2

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Sony Pictures Releasing

With so many story strands all playing out at once, it should come as little surprise to learn that crafting Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) has been difficult. Phil Lord explained the challenges that have emerged saying, "Amy Pascal, who was producer on 'Spider-Verse' and also on live-action 'Spider-Mans' ... she's been sort of our conduit to knowing exactly what's going on in the 'Spider-Verse' in various forms. The writers and director are all buddies of ours, so we sort of have been in the loop as far as what's going on. And we are always trying to make sure we're not stepping on each others toes and telling different types of stories and different themes and all that stuff, because people want an original story that feels new and interesting. It's our job to give it to them."

Miller echoed these sentiments while adding that, thanks to so much necessary collaboration, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) has turned out even better. "It's a bit of a forced collaboration. You're collectively advancing this humongous mega-story, and you have total control over your little sliver of it,” Miller began. “And everything else you just have to communicate as much as possible, make adjustments, and kind of treat what everybody else is doing as a sort of a provocation ... It's almost like a film school exercise where you're like, 'Okay, we were gonna do that but they did it first, so we're gonna have to do something different.' And often that makes you think of something you wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and it makes your thing better because you're having to come up with an off-speed pitch, and not do the obvious thing. The first 'Spider-Verse' was like that too. It's playing off of the canon and that gives you the freedom to do something else."

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) will see Miles Morales head off on another adventure across the multiverse with Gwen Stacy and a new team of Spider-People. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) is scheduled to be released on October 7, 2022.