We now have a trailer for the follow up to Into the Spider-Verse, nearly five long years after the first movie. But it’s fairly light on plot clues, so we need to rely on the writers and directors of Across the Spider-Verse to give us more of an idea of what exactly it is we’re looking at here.
Sony Pictures hosted an afterparty for the trailer drop (via ScreenRant), and in it, writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller gave some more clues as to what is going on between Miles (Shameik Moore) and Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) in the long-awaited sequel. Lord and Miller compared the relationship to that of an “older girl who goes off to college a year earlier” and leaves her younger boyfriend behind.
“Basically [Gwen] gets invited into Miguel O’Hara AKA Spider-Man 2099’s (Oscar Isaac) cool Spider Force… and [Gwen gets] invited into this Spider Society and Miles doesn’t. And [Gwen] sorta can’t tell him why.” The Spider Society is made up of ‘Hunters’ including Jessica Drew (Issa Rae).
It seems clear from the trailer that Spider-Man 2099 and potentially many of the other spider variants are in an adversarial relationship with Miles. It ends with Spider-Man 2099 slamming Miles to the ground. Gwen also asks Miles “aren’t we supposed to be the good guys?” which could be a reference to the Spider Society. The main villain of the next two Spider-Verse movies will be The Spot, however.
The trailer focused more on the relationship between Miles and his mother, and her desire to protect her “little boy” while also letting him out into the world. Miles isn’t just exploring the world, of course, but multiple universes and possibly timelines.
While we wait for Across the Spider-Verse to be released in June 2023, check out our guide to all of the different Spider-Men that we think we spotted in the trailer.