If you haven’t heard, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has audiences smitten to be bitten by a handful of radioactive spiders from a lot of alternate universes. Since the superhero hit recently topped off its success with a Best Animated Feature Oscar win and is gearing up for its upcoming home release, it’s time to talk sequels, spinoffs, shorts, theme parks… and so forth.
On the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse special features, fans will get to see a little more from John Mulaney’s Looney Tunes-inspired Spider-Ham in an exclusive short called “Caught in a Ham." It will follow Peter Porker’s day before he was sucked in the portal in the movie. Producer David Schulenburg and director of the short, Miguel Jiron, have more characters in the established Spider-Verse they'd also like to explore. Here’s what Schulenburg recently told SYFY WIRE:
I think we both would love to see a Noir short. I for one would love to see where Peni Parker comes from. I think those are just super exciting.
Yes! Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse focused mainly on Miles Morales being mentored by Peter B. Parker, while also introducing other Spider-heroes such as Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker and Spider-Ham. The stories of Spider-Man Noir, an old-timey detective voiced by Nicholas Cage, and Peni Parker, a cute anime girl voiced by Kimiko Glenn with a high-tech robot as a best friend, were introduced, but not given enough screen time for audiences to really get to know them.
It's especially exciting that Into the Spider-Verse allows for so many possibilities to branch off from what has already been established. For another short or exploration of the Spider-Verse, Jiron echoed his collaborator’s sentiments for rolling with Spider-Man Noir with these words:
Yeah, a real hard-boiled kind of detective gumshoe story would be so cool to see.
What’s cool about Spider-Man Noir and much of the other Spider-Verse characters is how distinctly different they feel from the typical Peter Parker/Spider-Man origin story we’ve seen played out many times over. Into the Spider-Verse already has a sequel in the works that will focus on Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen’s budding romance, along with a spinoff that will have Spider-Gwen leading a group of female Spider-heroes.
The “Caught in a Ham” filmmakers also showed their interest in a Spider-Ham movie as well, calling back to John Mulaney’s recent idea to focus on the character’s hard-hitting photojournalism career, as a sort of spoof of The Post, All the President’s Men and Spotlight as the pig deals with some sort of political controversy in his career amid bacon jokes and such.
There are tons of creative ways Spider-Verse can continue to grow and the minds behind the films seem to be already kicking around some exciting ones. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is available for digital download and the physical home release comes out on March 19.
