Work has been under way for a while on the much-anticipated to 2018's Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. And while Joaquim Dos Santos has been mentioned as directing from the start, Variety reports that Soul co-director Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson, production designer on that first Spider-Venture, have all been sharing directorial duties.
Powers and Thompson have been working together with Dos Santos since its inception, though the second two have, for some reason, only just been announced.
In related news, the same report mentions that producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller are writing the script alongside the previously announced David Callaham, which marks a return for Lord, who scored screenplay credit on the first. Also returning, albeit in a different capacity? Peter Ramsey, who co-directed the first, as an executive producer.
"The crew behind the Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse set such a ridiculously high bar, and we’re humbled to take on the challenge of charting the next chapter in the story of Miles Morales," the directing team said in a joint statement.
"We are so lucky to have Joaquim, Justin and Kemp on the Spider-Verse team," Lord and Miller added. "We are huge fans of Joaquim’s work — he makes his characters so heartfelt and unique, and he can tell an emotional story with an action sequence the way a musical does through a song. Justin is a maverick filmmaker who relentlessly pursues visual innovation and surprise but always in support of the emotional storytelling. Kemp’s work is incisive and ambitious and funny — with a writer’s wisdom and a director’s heart — he just knows what matters in every scene. All three of them elevate every project they take on, and they are certainly raising our game. We honestly just like them and want to be their friends and we’re hoping working on this movie together for the next few years will totally make that happen."
With a 7 October, 2022 release date set, we'll have to wait a while for the film to land, but with any luck it'll be worth it as much as the first was a surprising treat.