WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse almost introduced an Australian Spider-Man. The film was the big-screen debut of several alternate-reality versions of the wall-crawler, with Spider-Gwen not only one of the most exciting characters, but one who's set to feature in both the inevitable sequel and an all-female spinoff.
All of the new Spider-Men characters in the movie are lifted from the comics, with two created during the 2014 "Spider-Verse" comic book event. They've been lovingly reproduced on the big screen, with their comic book attributes amplified, including the cartoonish behavior of Spider-Ham, the black-and-white palette of Spider-Man Noir, and the Manga-style mecha that is SP//dr. However, it turns out that Sony considered creating an all-new version of Spider-Man for the animated movie, albeit a short-lived one.
Related: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Voice Cast & Surprise Cameo Guide
In an interview with CinemaBlend, directors Rodney Rothman, Peter Ramsey, and Bob Persichetti revealed that they toyed with creating an Australian Spider-Man. According to Rothman, it was his idea - but he pitched it too late in production. As he explained:
"We created an Australian Spider-Man. He showed up with the other Spiders, and he said he was 24 hours ahead, and then he glitched to death. So everyone was going to be like, 'Oh, it's going to be 24 hours.' That was the official ticking clock."
In Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, the alt-reality Spider-Men has a tendency of "glitching." Their bodies become wracked with inter-dimensional energy, causing them a tremendous amount of pain. It seems to happen at random, with the glitches sometimes hitting for just a fraction of a second, and sometimes lasting for several moments. According to Rothman, this glitching was intended to build to a head. The Spiders were only supposed to be able to survive in Miles Morales' dimension for a limited period of time.
According to Rothman, the problem was that he didn't think of the idea until too late in production. "When I handed that draft of the script in I was nearly fired," he observed. "It was at a time in production when the idea of adding another Spider-Man... it demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of film production." In truth, the idea of a time limit to the glitching simply wasn't necessary - Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is dramatic enough without that particular plot element.
It's fascinating to speculate what the Australian Spider-Man would have been like, surely living up to all the stereotypes, with a hat over the Spider-mask possibly. CinemaBlend speculates that he could have had boomerang webs instead of normal webs, and Sony would undoubtedly have gone for a major Australian actor to play the part, possibly even the likes of Chris Hemsworth or Hugh Jackman.
This raises an interesting question. Is it possible that the Spider-Man: Into Spider-Verse sequel or the all-female spinoff could introduce all-new versions of the wall-crawler? Until now, most attention has focused on which other comic book characters could be introduced into the franchise going forward, but it sounds as though Sony could just as easily create their own new Spider-Men and Spider-Women.
More: How Spider-Verse Sets Up The TWO Animated Spider-Man Sequels
Source: CinemaBlend
