Have you ever wondered how much the budget for Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse is? According to the directors, it made over $100 million, outperforming its predecessor by a wide margin. But why? what changed? Here we tell you more about this film, its art and its technical innovation.
The first thing worth mentioning is that this technical development came from Mexican and Latino talent. “In animation, there is an essence that cannot be fully captured… a human touch that is difficult to recreate,” says animator Daniel Ceballos in an interview with Axios Latino.
Ceballos was part of the film’s artistic team that, as As the director Guillermo del Toro himself mentions, “it will revolutionize the world of art”.
The Budget of Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse and its technological innovations
This work stands out for its use of six animation styles, something unique in the industry. In fact, the team that worked from the beginning of the franchise since 2018 mention that developed innovative technology that allowed them to combine 2D and 3D images.
They merged hand-drawn drawings with computer-generated imagery, adding interesting details like speech bubbles or colors that intertwine in unique ways.
the animators commented on their social networks that they wanted to go a little further. They discovered new visual styles for each of the new characters by developing the technology necessary to bring their full personality to the screen. This is where the budget for Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse took its biggest toll.
For example, In the trailer for the film, we can see how Miles Morales goes through a 3D portal and emerges in a new world. Featuring 2D hand-drawn cityscapes and vibrant pastel colors. Then, seamlessly travel to a futuristic 3D universe, animated predominantly in blue tones.
Much of Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse’s budget went into technology development.
The team mentions to the NY Times that part of the budget for Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse went towards developing a new way of animation.. The artists made a bold decision to break away from the conventional approach to computer animation. Motions are typically created by moving the image forward each frame, known as an “animate by one.”
This produces a smoother, more fluid animation, but without enough dynamism. Inspired by hand drawing techniques, the artists decided to explore animation “in two.” In this approach, a new drawing is created or the image is scrolled every second frame. This gave them greater control over the speed and intensity of the movements.
In this way, the artists managed to vary the rhythms of the movements in a more expressive way. For example, when Miles’s character runs scared through a snowy forest, his gait is animated by one to highlight his speed. However, when he stumbles and falls, his recovery animates into two, showing his fight against gravity to get back to his feet. And when he jumps from one skyscraper to another, the animation bursts with a vibrant energy that wouldn’t have been achieved otherwise.
This use of the Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse budget also allowed the filmmakers to highlight the dynamic poses that convey how Miles leaps and spins across Manhattan. As writer-producer Phil Lord explains: “Telling stories through sequential art is about the key poses, moving from one to another and from one frame to another”. This idea was described by Stan Lee in “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way”.
Spider-Man’s Mexican talent
The film’s production team, comprised of approximately 1,000 Sony Pictures Imageworks / Sony Pictures Animation professionals, included the participation of at least 40 Mexican artists, according to the count of the animators themselves.
A large part of Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse budget was to hire Mexican talent, from the aforementioned Ceballos, the artist Ortíz Rojo, among others. In addition, several artists of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, as well as from Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and other countries in the region, also collaborated.
Miralda Medina, a young woman from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, recounts that she was hired by Sony shortly after graduating, first as an intern and then full-time as an animator. In the film, she was in charge of the lighting and composition work, uniting the different layers that make up a scene.
“It is wonderful to participate in projects together with people from all over the world… But when you see Latino names and faces, the feeling multiplies,” says Ortiz Rojo, the artist of Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse.
