Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Directors Reveal How THAT Live-Action Cameo Came Together

There are no shortage of big surprises in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The sequel to 2018’s award-winning Into the Spider-Verse explores countless different realities, which allows for a ton of cameos and Easter eggs. One of the most exciting for those who saw the film opening weekend was actually a live-action cameo, with a real actor appearing in an animated segment. That moment drew one of the biggest reactions from audiences, but it was actually one of the very last things put together for the movie. It was added so late that a cardboard stand-in was used for some early audience screenings.

WARNING: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse! Continue reading at your own risk…

There are multiple live-action moments in Across the Spider-Verse, but the one everyone is talking about is the appearance of Donald Glover as the live-action Prowler, essentially reprising his role as Aaron Davis from 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. For his scene, Glover’s Prowler is in a jail cell in the Spider Society HQ, and he interacts with Miles Morales. 

Directors Kemp Powers, Joaquim Dos Santos, and Justin K. Thompson spoke with Variety about how the vital cameo came together, saying that involved a very last minute shoot to work with Glover’s schedule.

“It was shot at a studio in New York,” said Powers. “Chris Miller flew to be there in person, and Phil Lord and I were on the video feed giving direction. We got it in at the 11th hour. As a matter of fact, even in audience preview screenings, it was a little cardboard cutout of Donald Glover.”

“We knew it was still going to land, though, because the idea of it still got people geeked,” Dos Santos added. “That’s when you know you have something.”

Glover’s appearance wasn’t the only live-action moment in Across the Spider-Verse, but it was the only one that required new footage. Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man characters were shown with archival footage from their films, and Venom‘s Mrs. Chen made an appearance, using previously unseen B-roll footage.

According to the filmmakers, they had even bigger plans for the live-action segments, but they realized that the scenes were most effective if kept to a minimum.

“There were times when we had huge live-action sequences in the film, and it just turned into a bad joke,” Powers said. “Even we didn’t like it anymore. And we just said, ‘OK, enough, let’s make sure that it’s something precise that gets the most bang for the buck, and speaks to the story.”

Miles Morales returns to the big screen with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse now playing in theaters after premiering on June 2nd. Miles (Shamiek Moore) reunites with fellow heroes Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) for another web-swinging adventure through the multiverse, finding himself at odds with the Spider-Society led by Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac). Other new heroes include Spider-Woman Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), and Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), while new villain the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) also enters the fray. The sequel to Sony Pictures’ hit 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, and written by the team of Chris Miller, Phil Lord, and Dave Callaham.