Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Editor Shares Surprising Villain Origin

By Aaron Perine

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's editor shares how one obscure villain made it into the animated blockbuster. On Twitter, Andy Leviton, an assistant editor on the project, had a devious idea to include Typeface among the Rogues trapped in the Spider-Society's dimensional prison. There were some other "high-profile" villains chilling there at the time. But, that bit of screen time got some chuckles in the crowd. Leviton saw an opportunity to add some obscure fun to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and pounced. Now, this has to be one of the biggest moments in Typeface's history

"Fun #AcrossTheSpiderVerse Fact! How Typeface happened! Back in mid 2021, I showed my latest rough cut of the laser-caged anomalies walk-through bit to @shinypinkbottle, @Powerkeni, and @JDS_247," he wrote. "At the time, Lyla only introduced a few villain variants in a wide shot and… each had a quick line in passing. It included a Pirate Doc Ock (who you can see in the background of the final film) and Mooseterio, who is still Intro'd in the final. Originally he had a line that I pitched and scratched in, "I'm the master of im-MOOSE-sion!" I love puns…"

Wild Spider-Man Villains During Jail Sequence

"The bit came to an abrupt end and the directors mentioned that we should think up one more gag to close it out. Without a clue what I was going to do, I offered to try to come up with something while addressing the other notes. Imposter syndrome time… I looked through a list of spider-man villains to see if any sparked my interest. The moment I was reminded of Typeface's existence I knew it had to be him!"

So I found my favorite Typeface image on the internet and VERY crudely plopped it on top of an existing storyboard and… wrote and scratched a few threat options for him to shout. Here's a sampling of some: ⁃"Go to Helvetica, Spider-Man" ⁃"I'll put you in a comma, Spider-man!" ⁃"I'll rip your colon out, Spider-Man!" I didn't say they were all good. I only presented my favorite and… kept the others as backup."

Putting The Finishing Touches on Typeface

"I figured that, for those that don't know the deep cuts, many might assume we made Typeface up for the movie, so I wanted Lyla to provide some commentary to that," Leviton added to the thread. "I originally had her say, 'Over here, and I did not make this up, we have Typeface…' The bit worked well and everyone liked it!"

He continued, "But as we iterated and improved the scene, we added some pretty big cameos to the sequence. Typeface got cut down and moved as a buffer between the two cameos that had the biggest reactions during screenings (You know the ones) and… Lyla's line was cut down to just a name drop."

"Later, @philiplord plussed the gag adding Miles' reaction, 'Bold.' Then, while mixing, after anim was finished on the shot, he had the brilliant idea to have Typeface's dialogue pop on, alternating fancy serif fonts for each word… leaving Helvetica as Helvetica," the editor recalled. "I mocked up some fonts, timing, and positioning of the text in edit and the wizards at Imageworks made it much prettier!"

See All The Mutliversal Villains in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

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.

What Spidey villains do you want to see in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse? Let us know down in the comments!

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