The Most Anticipated Spider-Man Movie Hit With Another Delay?

Following the announcement regarding the live-action Spider-Man, during which Sony stated that the director of Shang-Chi, Destin Daniel Cretton, will be helming the movie, a new report stated that Beyond the Spider-Verse might be delayed. The report comes from industry insider Jeff Sneider, who alleges that the forward momentum on the live-action movie might impact the animated side of Sony and Marvel’s shared universe, contributing to the Beyond the Spider-Verse delay into 2027. This wouldn’t be surprising, as it would prevent two movies from competing against one another at the box office.

According to the insider, Sony just recently decided to slow things down with Beyond the Spider-Verse, as the studio supposedly scrapped most of the previously done work, citing creative reasons behind their decision. This would necessitate new animation, which wouldn’t be that much of an issue, but the renewed focus on live-action Spider-Man—which is reportedly supposed to enter principal photography in early 2025—is probably going to push Beyond the Spider-Verse by another year from 2026 release date to 2027.

This could even out the earnings a bit more, but more importantly, it would keep the IP relevant with the audiences for longer, which is something Sony has to strategize around, considering that the upcoming film is well beyond (pun intended) its initial release date and the fact that the superhero genre is over-saturated right now. Beyond the Spider-Verse was initially scheduled to drop in March 2024, which is actually less than a year following the release of Across the Spider-Verse, which debuted in the summer of 2023.

The tight release window between the two movies was completely justified because both were supposed to be released as Across the Spider-Verse parts one and two, but Sony pulled the latter from its schedule indefinitely in July 2023. The alleged reason behind this decision was Vulture’s report about extremely poor working conditions and crunch during the making of Across the Spider-Verse, which suffered delays of its own, following the release of Into the Spider-Verse in 2018.

Sony still hasn’t made any official commentary regarding Jeff Sneider’s projections about the alleged delay of Beyond the Spider-Verse, but the insider’s report has generated some push-back on social media, including responses from those actually involved with Spider-Verse movies, who state that project is developing according to plans. However, no one specifically said anything about whether or not those plans have changed in the meantime and whether we should expect a new release date for the animated movie or not.

It’s really important to take this information with the grain of salt; Sony still hasn’t offered any official commentary on the situation, which makes the whole story speculative at best.

Source: The InSneider