Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a film that draws its name from a famous comic book run, so it should come as no surprise that there were several comic books that influenced the production of the film. In an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian, Into The Spider-Verse producersChris Miller and Phil Lord revealed some of the comics that influenced the production most.
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Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is the star of the filming, so it’s a no-brainer that Brian Michael Bendis and Sarah Pichelli’s run on Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man was one of the biggest influences of the film.
“We started obviously with Miles, and went on a deep dive in that work, and we just thought it was so strong,” Lord said. “And there was so many amazing things that [Bendis] and [Picelli] came up with, and he has an intact family. He comes from two different cultures. That was so rich. That was like the foundation of everything.”
Morales was created by Bendis and Pichelli and first appeared in Ultimate Fallout #4 in August 2011. Shortly thereafter, Morales was awarded his own series — Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man — which lasted 28 issues, eventually earning a nomination for Best Continuing Series at the 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.
Miller then went on to add that the Spider-Gwen run from Jason Latour, Robbi Rodrigeuz, and Rico Renzi was another major influence.
“And Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Enrico’s stuff on Spider Gwen was really inspiring obviously,” added Miller. “All the dance stuff.”
“We read a bunch of stuff, and every would bring in, ‘Oh, I saw this thing in this one’ and ‘Look at this’ or ‘Here’s a moment of Kingpin that’s kind of like what we’re trying to do.”
Spider-Gwen — an alternate universe version of Gwen Stacy — is the newest character to appear in Into The Spider-Verse, having first been created right around the time production on the Sony feature kicked off. Spider-Gwen first appeared in Edge of Spider-Verse #2, part of the much larger Spider-Verse event concocted by fan-favorite Spidey writer Dan Slott.
The pair seemed relieved that they were able to adapt stuff from the very comics to read growing up to the silver screen, something Lord confirmed.
“We went and looked at how Kingpin was treated and made it big,” Lord said. “That’s the guy that we remember from the early days. So yeah, we got to go to the things that we remembered from growing up.”
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse swings into theaters December 14th.
