Screenwriter Dave Callaham has spoken about his work on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2, claiming Phil Lord and Chris Miller had him pitch them the sequel a year before the first film was released. Callaham, who made his screenwriting debut on 2005’s Doom adaptation, would later write a script that would go on to become the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables. Most recently Callaham also helped to pen Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel’s latest big-screen success

Set to be directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, the sequel to the groundbreaking animated feature had been put into development off the back of the incredible buzz surrounding the original even before it had hit theaters. Earning itself an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Critic’s Choice Award, 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse was an unprecedented success for Sony’s attempts to rejuvenate their Spider-Man franchise. Currently slated for a 2022 release, animation work on the film officially began in June this year with the first few early glimpses recently shown at this year’s CinemaCon.

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Most recently, Callaham sat down for an interview with THR, during which he was asked how he came to join Lord and Miller on writing the highly anticipated sequel. Confirming that he is still in the process of tweaking the script even as production is already well underway, Callahan suggests “we will be writing stuff for that movie until it releases”. Calling his involvement part of a “very strange process”, the screenwriter suggested that there was not even much of the first film that the famous duo were able to show him before he began work on its sequel. Check out what he had to say below:

"[Lord and Miller] said, 'We have this animated Spider-Man movie we are doing.' They were still working on the first movie. They couldn’t tell me what it was going to look like. Because it’s them, I said, 'I’ll come in and see what you have. I don’t get it.' They showed me an animatic, which at the time looked like napkin drawings with temp vocals and no animation styling behind it. I could feel the heart behind it, but I couldn’t imagine how spectacular this thing could be yet. They showed me some still images of some of the art they had been working on. With them, I trust them implicitly and I believed they were going to do something special. I said, 'OK,' and they said, 'Great. Pitch us a sequel.' So I began the very strange process of working on the sequel for a year before the original came out."

The Spider-heroes in Into The Spider-Verse

This eccentric filmmaking approach from the same duo responsible for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie has previously caused issues on other projects, with the pair ultimately being removed from directorial duties on Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2017. This professional setback aside, the pair quickly moved on to producing one of the most successful and critically acclaimed superhero films of all time, so perhaps Callaham’s implicit trust in them is well earned. After all, the writer also has the benefit of working with the pair on his animated Netflix film America: The Motion Picture.

However “strange” the writing process on Into the Spider-Verse 2 may seem, the fandom’s anticipation for the film is palpable. With the first film serving as the theatrical debut of Miles Morales’ version of Spider-Man, Lord and Miller were able to serve up something entirely new and exciting in a well-worn franchise that was once in very real danger of sacrificing fans’ continued goodwill. With any luck, Callaham’s addition to the writing team will ultimately prove just as successful when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2 hits theaters on October 7, 2022.

Next: Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 2 - What We Know So Far

Source: THR

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