SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE Directors Share Details on How That Big Cameo Happened
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse featured a ton of cameos in the movie, but there was one that really stuck out and caused audiences to flip out. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you might want to stop ready now because we get into some spoiler territory.
The big cameo which drew a huge reaction from fans, was the live-action appearance of Donald Glover as The Prowler. In the scene, we see the character in a jail cell in the Spider Society HQ, and he has a brief interaction with Miles Morales.
The directors of the film, Kemp Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos, and Justin K. Thompson, recently talked about how this scene came to be in the movie. The whole thing was a last-minute shoot to work around Glover's busy schedule.
Power says: "It was shot at a studio in New York. Chris Miller flew to be there in person, and Phil Lord and I were on the video feed giving direction. We got it in at the 11th hour. As a matter of fact, even in audience preview screenings, it was a little cardboard cutout of Donald Glover."
Ha! I actually would love to see the cut of the film that features a cardboard cutout of Glover! Dos Santos added: "We knew it was still going to land, though, because the idea of it still got people geeked. That's when you know you have something."
Glover’s appearance was super fun to see and it was completely unexpected. But, now we know that really anything is possible in these Spider-Verse movies and it will be interesting to see how they continue to play with these live-action characters in these animated films.
Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man characters were shown with archival footage from their films, and then there was an amusing scene featuring Mrs. Chen from Venom. That was made using B-roll footage from those films.
The filmmakers had even bigger plans for the live-action segments, but they ended up not using them in the film.
What did you think about Glover showing up in the Marvel movie?