Sony announced that Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson would be returning to direct the third installment of its animated Spider-Man series, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spide-Verse. However, the news isn’t going over so well, as fans now realize how far off the film actually is.
While Sony may be driving its Spider-Man supervillain film universe straight off a cliff into a lake of acid, the Spider-Verse films are riding high. The announcement that Persichetti and Thompson are directing should be a positive one, as each has been an integral part of the trilogy so far, having sat in the co-director’s seat for at least one film. However, fans, who have been clamoring for any information on the movie after the cliffhanger ending of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, were not pleased.
direct??? the movie was supposed to RELEASE like 8 months ago and its not even directed yet
we aint seeing this till 2027
— PеQu (@ImPeQu) December 17, 2024
The film was originally scheduled to release this past March as a quick follow-up to the second film but was scrubbed from Sony’s release schedule with no reason given. Fans thought today’s announcement would be a new release date, but, instead, it was a set of directors, a fact that hints at the film being a long, long way off. As one X user noted, “This feels like an announcement you make before you start doing a film.” Others were just as shocked and upset.
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However, X user Bryce Storbakken did fairly point out that while the delay in release isn’t good news, the directorial choice is. Persichetti was part of the team that directed the first film and executive produced the second one. Meanwhile, Thompson co-directed the second film and is credited with helping design the Spider-Verse movies’ distinctive animation style as production designer on the first movie. That gives both men enough experience to lead the trilogy to its conclusion, even if the last film is very delayed.
Of course, anyone paying attention to the complete and total lack of updates on Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and its sudden removal from the release schedule by Sony shouldn’t have been too surprised by the directors just being named or the lack of a release date being announced. Thankfully, Christopher Miller, one of the architects of the Spider-Verse, franchise has already explained that the two “new” directors aren’t actually new at all.
“To anyone confused: Bob and Justin are not the *new* directors, they have been the directors of BTSV the entire time — and doing a great job,” he said on X. “They were just announced today.”
At the moment, though, it appears that Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse won’t hit theaters until 2026 at the very earliest and possibly even later.