Creator to Creator: Spider-Man | The Full Conversation

(intense music) - I mean, I would say my earliest memory of Spider-Man, and Kemp and Justin have heard this a million times at this point- - It's still a great story. - But yeah. So I was born in Portugal, and our family crest is actually the spider. So my middle name is Aranha, which means "spider" in Portuguese. - That's great. - So my first like visual memory of anything was a John Romita Sr. image of Spider-Man in my room growing up. So, you know, every holiday, every birthday, it was always

a spider-related gift coming from Portugal. And it felt like it was almost, I don't know, destined or unavoidable, like I was on a collision course to do something spider-related. - Someone put it in your room. - Literally. - And you're like, "Well"- - This is it. - "This is it." - This is it. - Well, I remember my first start of Spider-Man was as a kid I was obsessed with Underoos. Like I love, for some reason- - Yeah. - They're fun to wear! - And also I didn't, my mom always liked to tell me,

I didn't know which hero I wanted to be that day so she said I would wear up to eight Underoos T-shirts at once so I could change. - You had like on layers. - Yeah. And Spider-Man was obviously one of them, but I was obsessed with action figures growing up, like a really good, even before like I could, you know, read comics and stuff. And I remember the way she would kind of convince me to go shopping with her was she would give me my Spider-Man action figure and I would grip it so tight that t

he black spider in the back would actually wear off. And I remember, to this day, still remember my best friend as a kid had the newer Spider-Man action figure and I would just be so upset that he had the cooler looking one than I did. And it's like, from that day on, it was just like Spider-Man. - That's awesome. Was it the "Secret War" Spider-Man, which- - He had the "Secret War" Spider-Man. - There it is. - There you go. Yeah. He had it. Yes. - We were talking about, earlier, we were talking

about the first things we saw. Like what was it? Was it a comic, was it a poster? And we were mentioning the reruns of the 1960s "Spider-Man" cartoon. And they ran during the afternoon. And I just remember seeing the opening credits with the greatest theme song of all time. ♪ Da, da, da, da ♪ - And the lyrics tell his whole story. And there's that moment when he swings by and he waves, he waves to the camera. But in my mind it's like he's waving to me. - That's awesome. - And from that, somethin

g clicked and I said, "He's my guy." And my parents went with it. And when I was in fourth grade, my mom, it was my birthday, she brings to school a sheet cake, John Romita Spider-Man. And for one day I was a cool kid in class, (group laughing) but that's it. It's those early seeds and you just boom, you pick it. And then my family was cool with it. - Yeah, I grew up in Brooklyn, so I think Spider-Man stood out. I don't have a single comic, but he stood out because he was one of the first Super

Heroes who was in a city I recognized because all the DC Comics I was looking at, they were a metropolis, they were in Gotham. Even the X-Men were like upstate, which I didn't go upstate New York till I was like 20 years old. I really was like a townie in Brooklyn. So, you know, my view of the city was usually in a Spider-Man comic. But I remember, there was no one comic. One of the things that made Spider-Man always jump out at me was he always seemed to be beating up or beating people who were

more powerful than him. Spider-Man would beat the Juggernaut. Spider-Man would fight all of the X-Men in "Secret Wars." Spider-Man would beat like the wheels off of Iron Man. He would always figure out a way. He was kind of like a, you know, there's like those God level heroes, like Thor and the Hulk and Juggernaut. And for some reason Spider-Man would always kind of tap into something that even though he wasn't this God-like hero, he always managed to like beat people who were bigger than him

or stronger than him. And that really, I think, kind of tapped into this like underdog quality that made him super duper appealing to me. - And he'd come back home bruised and beaten and have to- - Yes, and still have to go to class. - That's right. That's right. So it was always like suit back up. - Yeah. Yeah. - For me it was the 1967 cartoon series, which was still running in the '70s. And then in '77 there was a live action Spider-Man. - Oh yes. - The, you know, so if you're watching, you kn

ow, "Battlestar Galactica" or "CHiPs" or whatever was on, so that was there. That wasn't as good, but my young self was still very excited. And then I think the Corgi helicopter that has the web rotor, my mom bought me that at Solvang. And that was the first really exciting Spider-Man thing I had in my life. (Jacinda laughing) - I always avoid this question because I also remember the animations you know, in the morning we would watch those reruns and I only remembered the theme song and I love

singing it, but I was more of an X-Men person. (laughing) - There's nothing wrong with that. - Yeah. - Plenty of crossover there with Spider-Man. - [Bryan] Many, many crossovers. - Well, I guess if I had to go to my earliest memory, I don't know where, I will never be able to remember exactly where I saw it. It might've been because I grew up on Hollywood Boulevard looking out over the Chinese Theater from my window. It might've been just like the people in costume- - Just dressed up. - Hanging

out next to the Man Chinese Theater that I used to walk past every other day with my parents. But somehow I became obsessed with, I think, the iconography. I've always just been so fascinated with visual design and, you know, and art was my first language. And so, like, I think English was like a distant third. So as you can tell. And I think, so my earliest memory of Spider-Man is actually being in kindergarten. And they were insisting that I learned the alphabet, like I said, distant third. An

d they were insisting that I learned the alphabet. And I said, "I do not have time. This is finger painting time. And I am really busy making my painting of Spider-Man right now." - Wow. - And I refused to stop, and all the other kids have sat down and I started having like a tantrum in the school, in kindergarten, 'cause I was like, "I'm not done with the foot. I'm still trying to draw the foot and I need to get it right before I'm done." And I remember they had to like pull me away and take me

to the principal's office. - Wow. Became a whole thing. - It became a whole thing. They brought my parents in and I refused to do any work until I could do only finger painting. And they were like, "Well, what if we make a deal with you that once a week you can", 'cause at that, there used to be arts education in this country. - Yeah, yeah. - And, sorry, politics. (group laughing) There used to be arts education, and we had an art teacher that like the class would go see, like our kindergarten

class at Los Feliz Elementary would go see once a week. And they said, "What if we give you an extra hour a week just by yourself with the art teacher? Will you learn your alphabet?" And I was like, "Deal." - Wow. - So thankfully someone was able to get me to learn how to speak and now you can suffer. (group laughing) - And that's how "Spider-Verse" was made. (group laughing) (static crackling) - How to draw comics the Marvel way. - Yes. - Yes. - Yeah. - And so not only the book, which, you know

, it starts out with the book, but then I got the video cassette. - Ooh, wow. - Oh, wow. - And so the video cassette is- - You were fancy. - Yeah. It was fantastic. It's quite a piece of technology. So even though it's about drawing comics, and of course what we're doing today is is not exactly that, you're still posing the character and displaying them as dynamically and heroically as possible, which is what they're driving home as the Marvel way. - Right. - And so, and even that section on com

position, I still show it because it's fantastic and you get their voices in your head. So there's this one section where they're showing like a panel that John Buscema has drawn. And he's done it mediocre, how the competitors would do it. (group laughing) He's like, "You see, it tells the story. It's okay. But it lacks drama and sheer excitement." And then Buscema chimes in, "These panels are too vertical. They're too straight up and down, and they lack the power of a Marvel character." You kno

w, like, so I watch that so much that those things are, they're in my head. And so when we're in any review- - Wow. - That's how he talks during the review. (group laughing) - Yeah. - Those voices. - Yeah, in any review, their voices are in that review. - Amazing. - But I will say like when we're on set, when we're doing like a shoot, Bobby will get into the pose and say, "This is how I want him to stand." - Yeah, yup. - Yeah. - It's like, you know, it's really cool. - Which is what Stan used to

do. He'd get up on his desk and he'd act out a story for whether it was Kirby or Buscema or Ditko, and he would act it out and then they would go. And I think that was so important to all of us. Whatever we saw, Marvel was very different from when they started doing merchandising. They used, or I'm sure the actual creators wanted to be involved, so when it came to posters, when it came to Spider-Man being on a Slurpee cup, it was John Romita Sr., you know, he's the one that comes after Ditko, a

nd brings this whole soap opera slick style. And he kind of established, he literally did, and it was a thing we all look at this page of like how to draw Spider-Man and how to do the webs. And John Romita eventually became one of the art directors at Marvel, and he's the one that laid the groundwork so that when we saw these things as young people, they were right. - There was a unified version of them. Yeah. - They were made by the people that understand and loved Spider-Man. - That's right. -

So as a kid, when you saw it, it looked real, it felt real. - Well, whether it was a notebook or a poster or the, you know, I had that cool dune buggy that had the net that would like- - Oh yeah! - Launch of it, yeah. - V-go. Yeah. - But like, all that felt like it was coming from the same place, the same universe. You're right. - Well, the thing is, like, you know, I feel like we've all probably been asked why is Spider-Man so popular? Like, we've all got that question asked. And I think it ju

st comes down to like, you know, he's probably the most relatable hero you'll find. And it's like, yes, he's fighting Doc-Ock or Green Goblin and or Venom, but at the same time, he's also worrying about his homework, is his aunt okay, is the girl gonna like him. You know, he has all of these, and it's like, that's what makes him... Like listen, I love Thor, I love Captain America. I love Iron Man, but like, there's something about Spider-Man. He has that just relatability that we can connect to

and I think that's kind of why, at least I know I was always drawn to him, because there's something that he's going on that I can say, "I'm going through the same thing. How does he deal with it?" And I think that's why, you know, we all gravitate toward him. - And he's fun about it. - And he's funny about it. - Yeah. It's more of a good time. It's not heavy or egocentric. It's you know, it's you. - Yeah. Snark didn't exist when he started. But now snark is ubiquitous. - That is true. - Yeah. -

But at the time, his snark really stood out. - Yeah. - Especially in Super Hero comics where people weren't self-effacing or self-deprecating. Everybody was pretty serious. - Serious. Yeah. And the heavier it got, the snark would like sort of arise to the occasion. You'd be like, oh, he's done. He's done, he's buried under a mountain of whatever it was, and then he would make some comedy out of it. - But even that, you know, you know friends who use humor as a defense mechanism. - Exactly. - Ri

ght? And you're like, oh, that's like, that's how... Yeah, like that's how he's dealing with it. And you're like, yo, I know someone. Or I get in a moment where I'm super stressed and I make a joke of it to lighten it up because if it gets too serious, I'm not gonna know what to do. - Totally. - And just all those, the franchise, and whether it's Peter, whether it's Miles, they kind of have all that kind of thing in common where there's something about what they're going through, whether it's a

Super Hero life or their normal life that we can always find something to identify with. - We just saw a screening of "Into the Spider-Verse" with an orchestra backing it last night, and there was something I didn't notice that was, you know, it's a far off scene, it's right when Miles has been smashed by Kingpin, or Miles, when Peter's been smashed by Kingpin. And he's telling Miles, "It's gonna be okay", and it's clearly not gonna be okay. And he gives him this like, dismissive, like, "Oh, jus

t go, just go. It's fine. I'm fine." And I didn't realize it until seeing it, you know, again, for the fifth time or whatever it was on the big screen, I was like, oh man, he's still like portraying that everything's gonna be totally chill and totally fine. And it raises the stakes even higher. - Yeah. It does. Well, and it's also just like, that's such a great comforting thing when, you know, I know for me, like the idea of, like, when I was growing up, there was, like, it wasn't always great.

And the idea that I could, it was okay to like laugh at things and to find humor in situations that didn't on the surface have them, And that that could carry you through things is like such a wonderful tool for coping and getting through. I mean, I had not to laugh sometimes. (group laughing) You know? And I think that's also what Peter Parker also had to learn sometimes. You get punched harder sometimes when you laugh too much. But I think there's like a great service there that it taught me.

(static crackling) You know, I think for me, I'll just say, like it was so refreshing to me, like when we started doing it in 2015, Phil and Chris called me and wanted me to get involved in that. What was so refreshing about those comics is we had seen so many Spider-Man movies and they're wonderful and awesome. And we'd seen a lot of Super Hero movies, but what was so great about it to me and was so appealing was that there was a character whose backstory wasn't rooted in tragedy. And that ther

e was a character like, oh, there's this affirmation here that parents supporting their kids and kids who actually have like a good established line of communication with their parents and who actually like, who love each other and have a tight bond that that can be its own strength, that it's own super power that can carry you through things. And I hadn't seen it done quite like that because it was so rare for, you know, we see like all the like your dad was killed by this, and your mom was kil

led by that, and your uncle died here. And here was like, no, we love you and we'll always support you. - At the time, it was the first Sam Rami Spider-Man movie's coming out, and we're like, "Oh my gosh, where do we point people to start reading? We can't point 'em back to the comics from the '60s. He has a bow tie and he rides a moped. Who's gonna understand that?" So they- - That sounds awesome. - I know. (group laughing) So they said, "Let's do the ultimate line so that we're telling it agai

n, fresh." Fast forward 10 years, and now even the Ultimate comics are complicated. So the idea was to do Miles here again, here's this young teenager, but as you said, let's make him different from Peter. Peter has the guilt, every time he puts on the mask, he's doing that to make sure someone doesn't lose their Uncle Ben. So intentionally not having him with a tragedy, he comes from the point of view of I'm a fan, this is cool. And this Spider-Man has fallen, someone needs to be Spider-Man. Oh

, I get bit by a spider, I'll be Spider-Man. But he approaches it through joy. And that helps when he interacts with Peter, he helps him remember, like you don't have to feel so guilty all the time. - Right, right, right, right. - Look at all the good things you're doing. - Yeah. - I remember the conversations of, you know, back in 2014 when we said, "Okay, we're gonna make a Spider-Man game." And you know, you mentioned like, there's so many movies, there's so many comics, there's so many, you

know, games starring Peter, we're like, "Well, what are we gonna bring that's new and different just like the comics, right?" And, you know, we're thinking of all these different ways. Well, we're not gonna do the origin story. We're gonna make him old. Or we're gonna make Otto his like father figure that he's like, you know, wants to be. And we're like, what else? Is there something the same? And we just, where do we start? Start with the comics, and we're reading and we're like, we just keep g

oing back to like this Miles character is really freaking cool. And I remember, you know, for us as developers, you know, you're adding another character to an experience and you're like, well, there's a big cost there. Like, you know, we're gonna build out this character. Is he gonna, you know, how is he gonna work with Peter? But we just kept seeing like all the things you mentioned about what you loved about Miles and what he brings to Peter, but imagine they're in the exact same world. Imagi

ne. And then for us it was like, can we show him be a hero before he's ever even bitten by a spider? And I just remember it's probably, I make a lot of mistakes in my job. I feel like it's one of the things as a group, we were like, that was the right, even though we knew it was gonna be hard and as we got into "Spider-Man Two", now we have two heroes, we were like, "If we do it, it's gonna be more than worth it." And I think like, you know, whether it's, you know, Peter or Miles in the "Spider-

Verse", you see him in our universe. It's like, there's something really special when you see all them come together. And I think for us, it's one of the things I know, it's, you know, you always think about what's gonna get me to wake up in the morning and wanna do this, you know, every day? And it's like seeing them together and seeing how they, especially in "Spider-Man Two", how they learn from each other, challenge each other. - That's it. - Yeah. - And you know, a lot of us, you know, talk

ed about in "Spider-Man Two", how can we make this story about requires, what about this story requires us having two heroes? And to see Miles from "Spider-Man One" be a hero before he gets powers, and til Miles Morales learns the kind of Spider-Man he wants to be. And by the "Spider-Man Two", he's now telling Peter, "Hey, this is what we're gonna do." I mean, one of my favorite things that the writers did was in "Spider-Man One" near the end of the game, Miles asked Peter, "What's the play, Coa

ch?" And in "Spider-Man Two" near the end Peter asked Miles, "What's the play, Coach? - That's incredible. - And to see his evolution and see that is just, it, to me, is I think something that I will always be proud of no matter what, no matter what people think about the game and all that stuff. It's one of the things that I feel like we were able to make our universe unique and to tell a story that I hope brings more people into the experience. - It helps to have what we would call North Stars

. What is our North Star? And part of it was what we talked about worlds colliding. The best Spider-Man stories are when Peter's world, his civilian life, collides with his costume life. And the other North Star that we thought was very important. Again, let's do our research. Let's go back to "Amazing Fantasy 15", first appearance of Spider-Man, it's all there. And at the very last panel, Stan Lee writes, "With great power, there must also come great responsibility." Sometimes we shorten that.

With great power comes great responsibility. We say, "Well, no, it doesn't always." With great power, there must, it's a choice. There must also come great responsibility. So collectively, whether we're making films, games, we always say what is our power? Our power is we are working with these characters that we love, that are known around the world for decades. People love these characters. We get to work with them. Also, we get to work with these amazing creators and they're gonna bring their

vision to this amazing character. So that is our power. And we're given this platform and the support and money to create these big things that many people could see. What is our responsibility? Don't mess it up. Not only don't mess it up, make it great so that the current generation can be like ourselves when we were younger and we saw something and we said, "Oh, they get it. They get the character, they know it and they made it. Now it's our responsibility. Make something so that when it is s

een, it is played, one of the emotions or thoughts that the audience may have is, I can tell this was made by fans for fans. And so that is our responsibility. Here's all the awesome stuff. Not only don't mess it up, make it great and maybe even elevate it. - Try some new things. - Thank you for coming. (Joaquim laughing) - It's interesting going back to Miles Morales, just to say, 'cause you know, I agree with all the things about the characters, but sometimes it's like the simplest things that

connect with you. And one thing that I remember made Miles, 'cause honestly, by the time Miles Morales was created, I kind of stepped away from comic books, like as a reader. As much of a fan as I was, I kind of gotten fed up with them and I didn't know why. And there's this thing with Miles, well, there's a thing that I noticed in comics and comic book characters as a kid. And it's just, I don't think it was anything done on purpose on the part of the creators, but it felt like characters of c

olor were always the downgrade characters. They were weaker, they had shittier powers. So that if you have a group of kids sitting at a table and say, "Here's the Super Heroes, who wants to be who?" Falcon's last. Black Panther's last. You know, there's always Luke Cage is strong. He ain't No Hulk. - Right. - It's always this like Whopper Jr. version of a more established white hero. - Right. - I'm not saying it was done on purpose. I'm saying as a kid who loved comics, no one wanted to be those

characters. And Miles, I wasn't even reading comics. It's so simple. I just thought it was nice that he had dope powers. The kid could turn invisible. He could shock you with electricity. On paper, it was different, but he was as powerful as another Spider-Man. Just that. And by making him that everyone wants to be him. Not just Black kids. Who wouldn't want Miles' powers? - Miles, and I think what sort of Spider-Man has evolved into is this mantle that can sort of be taken on by anybody. My ki

d's eight years old. Miles is his Spider-Man. That's who he recognizes as Spider-Man first. He loves Peter, he loves Gwen. He loves 'em all, but Miles is his guy. And I don't know any other, I mean, maybe there is, off the top of my head, I can't think of another Super Hero franchise that allows you to embody the character and sort of become, you know, envision yourself as the character. - Yeah, I love when fans are like, "Miles is my favorite." "Pete's my favorite." "Miles is my favorite." Beca

use that means we have done something that is a character. Like, and even playing the game, I'm like, "Well, I wanna play as Miles right now because this is the thing that I'm in the mood to play Miles. But now I'm in the mood to play Pete." And then I would go back, and you go back and forth, and like, if you can make characters where there is kind of a debate about who's the better one, then I think that's like mission accomplished, right? - That's what all fans do. - Exactly. Right. I don't w

ant it to be like- - Who wins Silver Surfer or like, oh, well, I got the power cosmic." Oh, shut up. - I don't want it to be one over the other, that means we didn't make 'em dope. We didn't make these characters someone you aspire to be like. So like, I think that's a, you know, like, you know, I been watching "Spider-Verse" last night and you're like, you know, you fluctuate people between like, oh, I like Miguel now and I like that. And it's like, all... And then we have Gwen coming in and it

's like, well, you know, I remember when I first saw the movie for the first time, I'm like, "Gwen's my favorite now." And then last night I'm watching and I'm like, "I think it's Miles now." And no, then... But that's healthy. That's good for everything. - And you know what it takes when you talked about, when you said wave, it takes years and it takes waves of new voices to come to the party. At the beginning there was a very small number of people who wanted to tell Super Hero stories or make

Marvel stories. And over the years through different on-ramps, whether it's the "X-Men" cartoon, no matter what it is, the more we can bring new waves of people and have different voices and points of view, and that is when we get the authenticity. And someone comes in and says, "You don't know what you're doing. It may be unintentional, but let me point out, oh, can you make..." What would you like, you know, how can we get it right? - But it doesn't even have to be voiced as a criticism. I ju

st say like, it's not you're doing it wrong, just make a doper. Like the same thing that our own crews tell us when we're making the movie. What did they say when Mumbattan wasn't coming together? The Indian animators got together, sent us an email. "Make it doper. It's not dope enough." - Nothing makes me happier than knowing that people are really, you know, that they love Miles and that they find him like cooler than Peter. And I've often found that fans are, I think maybe if you grew up with

the comics, you love Peter Parker, but I've met a lot of people who don't know anything about Spider-Man, like didn't grow up with Spider-Man. But then Miles Morales is the one that they love. And I just love that about it. Miles Morales is fun for us to work on because I like that he's really fresh and he is younger, he's more youthful. We can do more with his fashion, we can do more with his, you know, his animations. And I just feel like there's more freedom in exploring who he is. Especiall

y because he's younger as well in our universe. - It's another place where people can, you know, draw into it. Like for, how am I gonna put this? So I was a really awkward kid, as I start to stutter. And when you're awkward and you mess up and you're insecure, you don't see a future for yourself. You don't see how you're going to be a doctor or a lawyer or police officer like my father was. And you might not necessarily be good at anything yet. And when someone creates a character that you see y

ourself in, and that character is aspirational, you can start to see a future for yourself. - Right. - Right. Right. - So whatever it is we're making, that's our great responsibility is to make that place where someone young and insecure and doesn't see a future for themselves goes, "That's mine." I'm gonna cry. (group laughing) - That's beautiful. - When I was a kid, I didn't want to be Spider-Man, I wanted to be Peter Parker, because like you, he showed me a possibility. - Yeah. He's a big kid

. And you wanted to be a big kid so bad. - So he gives, that's the wonderful thing about these characters is they give young people an idea of a possibility. I could be like that. - Can I tell you too, one of the best things I saw on the internet for the first game was a fan actually sent me a selfie of themselves and they were saying, "It's my first day of school, guess who I'm dressed up as?" And he dressed up as Peter Parker. - Wow. - Yeah. (laughing) And I just remember being really touched

because, you know, everyone really likes the Spider-Man suits. But the fact that some- - It was Peter Parker. - Kid in high school wanted to dress up as Peter made me feel like we had done our jobs. - Yeah. - That's awesome. - Great. - That's great. - Really early on, you know, like I said, there had been so many movies, so many comics, so many games where like how are we gonna make this game resonate with the most passionate Spider-Man fans or Marvel fans out there? But like, how are we gonna s

urprise them? And I kind of created this phrase of respect the DNA of the franchise, but don't be afraid to mix things up. And we've kind of taken that philosophy the entire time, and how can we bring that, because we all know these fans are really, really passionate and they have a lot of thoughts. And I mean that in a great way. And people are like, "Do you ever get tired of it?" I'm like, "No, because if they stop talking about it, that's even worse." That's worse than like, you know, like "I

didn't like it." And I think we've done that, whether it's, you know, Miles and, you know, the Miles game completely rethought of how we thought of the Tinkerer. And then obviously with "Spider-Man Two", you know, we have a very popular character that people care a lot about in Venom. And we're like, okay, what's the part of the... And Jacinda and I, and Bobby and I talk about this all the time, is like, "All right, what are the characteristics of the character that if we don't have, we should

hide?" - Yes. Right. - And it's like, okay, so Venom, you want him big, you want the teeth. He's gotta sound like Tony Todd. (laughing) You know, he's gotta have those great Symbiote powers and just overwhelming strength and like someone like Pete could never just, you know, it's gonna be hard for him to take down or Pete and Miles to take down. But I'm like, "Okay, what's our change?" Well, who does he bond with? What's that relationship that we can bring? And I think we're always looking for t

hose things. And I think thinking about the, you know, me being a fan of the "Spider-Verse" films, I think what the first "Spider-Verse" film did for me was it gave me more confidence that we could even go further. We can continue to push 'cause like I am in awe of your risk taking. I mean, those films from the first one and the second one, there was a lot of big swings. - Well, I think that's a really good segue into our North Star. Our North Star was for this second one was you have to tell yo

ur own story. And if you're talking about Canon Events, like Canon Events that try and like say that things have to be a certain way. And here's this whole "Spider-Verse." Like all these characters are telling Miles how things are supposed to be for him and how these events are supposed to go. How your suit's supposed to look. How the style of your universe is supposed to look, how everything. And we challenged it on every level to tell our own story and to tell Miles' story. And that he would f

ind a way in every situation, again, it's that affirmation he gets from his parents that the things that he was taught by them that are the most valuable. And she makes him promise before he leaves, you know, you gotta promise me you won't forget. You won't forget where you came from and what you've learned here, and that you have a place to come to. And to never let them tell you who you are. And so that idea that you have to tell your own story, I think it sort of infected us across every leve

l of our storytelling in our picture because... And it's sort of like, well, we can't do things the way we've seen them before. - But I have to say, 'cause one thing I have, I'm both so in awe but jealous of is that if you look at the "Spider-Verse" films, they are so comic book, like that is like a comic. There is so much complexity in comic... But I think back to rewatching the second film last night and the conversation that was mentioned with Rio and Miles, it's such a human relatable, like

that's what- - That's what you gets you through- - That's what a mom and a son would talk about. And wrap up in all this crazy "Spider-Verse" and Tyrannosaurus Rex, you know, dinosaur spider. There's this fundamental of like- - It makes me so happy to hear you say it. - Yeah. I mean- - Oh, it's... I'm just like- - That's the North Star, right? - By the way, stop making our job so hard. - Oh, please. - That's what I wanna say. Stop it. - Well, that's an internal motto is exactly that, is what do

we do? We're gonna tell epic stories with a human heart. - Yeah. - That's what Marvel has been for decades. That's what defines a Marvel story. So it's all those moments of Miles talking to his mom. - Yeah. - All those very, it's almost like when you read a magazine about movie stars and there'll be a section called "Celebrities, They're Just Like Us." - Right, right, right. - That's what Marvel is. Super Heroes, specifically Spider-Man. - It's true. - Just like us. - Well, look, I will say, I t

hink what, as a fan of the content, you know, and one that was a fan long before I ever got in the industry, you can like sniff when things are not authentic. There was a time when, you know, comic book films were starting to become more prominent, it almost seemed like the filmmakers were- - Embarrassed. - Embarrassed by the comic book origins. And they everybody was clad in really dark leathers because, you know, bright colors wouldn't work. And I get it. You know, it was sort of nurturing pro

cess for the audience. But I think to understand the truth of the characters, it is, it's the humanity that really brings you in and hooks you. And it's not that it gets you through all the crazy stuff 'cause I love all the crazy stuff. But that's the North star for the audience to interact with the T-Rex and go like, "Miles is worried about getting back home right now." - Well, you know, in a way we've, something we talked a lot about throughout all the games is we wanted to see their lives whe

n they weren't wearing the suit. Like, and we do a lot of mission playable, like not just cinematic, playable missions- - [Joaquim] Honestly, just walking around in the apartment is a big deal. - And like, you know, and sometimes, you know, obviously it's really exciting to see Pete and Miles swinging around and fighting a giant sandman, right? But, you know, the thing we talk about a lot on the team is in order to care about the stuff in the suit, you gotta care about the stuff outside. You got

ta show the stuff that happens outside a suit because that stuff means more in the suit if the stuff, you gotta have both. - A punch lands harder with more consequence if you understand what's happening outside. Look, even going through, I mean, going through the apartment and like flipping through the records, I was like, okay, this is, I'm feeling the texture of this world. You know, I could get a sense for what Miles was going through. - Yeah. - Yeah. I love that you guys put so much energy i

nto letting me feel each space like so fully and that I could immerse myself in the lives of these characters. And it was just really like, and we were trying to do the same thing. And I love that you can actually inhabit and feel like you're actually getting to be in the shoes of these characters. You guys really put a lot into that. - Thank you. - Yeah, thanks. And I was gonna say too, I was so impressed by the movie because you put so much in so little amount of time 'cause even every time yo

u introduced a new spider and you did those really quick, you know, montages of like, who is the Spider-Man that I'm talking to, and I was like, "Oh my God, this is going 90 miles an hour." And I was like, oh, I get it. I understand what they're trying to tell me. And then the other thing that totally blew my mind too was just the fact that, you know, for us, like our game was so challenging because we had to deal with symbiotes, Sandman, you know, you name it, big things. But the fact that you'

re able to do that many artistic styles to represent every single character, like blew my mind. It was such a crazy flex because as I was watching it, I was like, again? Another one? This is insane. There's like 10 movies in one movie. This is incredible. - I think if you're gonna say like everyone can wear the mask, anyone can wear the mask, and you have to write your own story, I think you have to show that. I don't think you can just say it. And I think when you say "anyone can wear the mask"

, we sort of like almost created a self-fulfilling prophecy- - Yeah, it was sort of like challenge accepted. - Right. - Yeah. (static crackling) - It helps because the step ups in technology are kind of incremental. So it helps to go back. Like I started in games 24 years ago, and what you could do was incredibly limited. You were lucky if a animated character had fingers like that you could pose or bone past the ankle. And definitely facial animation was limited. Sometimes if you're lucky, ther

e was a jaw to flap. And so if you look at that and then you kind of look at where we are now, I mean, just coming, you know, from "Spider-Man One" to "Spider-Man Two", the leap is still pretty incredible. Like the speed with which we can move through the environment, the environment is ray traced even if you're over the top of New York. These are things you could have good ideas when you were a young person, but they're not possible, so stop talking, you know? You're gonna have to get much more

clever and scrappy with what you're doing. And now we can say those crazy things out loud and maybe pull it off, you know? (laughing) So I think that's one of the biggest differences. And, you know, it really helps everything. Like underneath the characters, the number of blend shapes running in a face is just science fiction compared to what we could do. And remember it's still rendered in real time. Ziva full muscle deformations, like a lot more collaboration with art and visual effects just

to make a character exist. Whereas, you know, back in the day it was kind of like NASCAR. It was, you know, a couple, you know, just a few vertices and a okay texture. These things are incredible works of art. And the fact that they run in real time and get lit with ray tracing and real time shadows is phenom, it's just ridiculously awesome. And I think it's easy even for us to forget, you know, when we have that scene everyone meets and the entire cast is on screen with all of their high resolu

tion heads outdoors, real time, you know, shadows. And it's just stunning what people far more talented than me have enabled us to be able to play around with and just, you know, make it the Marvel way or whatever. But I mean, without them, there's none of this, you know? - You know, earlier we were talking about films, video games, and how, say for films, for example, what was done before with Super Heroes and now the, you know, it's in the last 10, 20 years and now, and this applies to games,

film, we're getting more and more and more amazing visuals and then we can do more Super Hero stories. But for the longest time, tech wasn't there. What was drawn on the page in comic books for a time was more amazing that you could see in any film. And it took a while for technology to catch up and it was different companies, different heroes. But now finally, tech has caught up to our inner dreams of when we were kids and we read comics and it's static images, but in our minds we're almost tur

ning it into a movie. What's happening between the panels? How is this moving? And it needed two things. It needed the technology and it needed generations of fans who love this stuff and who now somehow find ourselves in the position to make these things and make decisions. And when you have that combination of creators who grew up with it, who loved it, who's dying for a chance to show the world why did I name my son Peter? We can say, "Here's why." Amazing creators who love it and now we have

the technology to deliver what was in our mind's eye in 3D for the world to see. - Why did you name your son Peter? - Well. (group laughing) But also I have to echo, I mean, a lot of this, you know, I made a couple films before the first "Spider-Verse" film and the second one, and the technology definitely wasn't there. So much of it is, I feel honestly like an embarrassment of riches of opportunities that have kind of come together in this incredible way where, I mean, just like this incredibl

e web of life and destiny that's sort of like come together to this perfect confluence of events that, you know, allowed us to have the technology was available when the opportunity to make this film was available. Because as much as I love designing for designing's sake, and you can't get me to learn my alphabets, you know, because I'd rather be drawing, like, as much as that might be true, I never want to do anything just for the sake of it. The story that we had to tell really did require thi

s technology. We couldn't have told this story the way we told it 10 years ago. We couldn't have told it 20 years ago, 30 years ago. All those advances had to be made. You had to invent Blender, you had to invent Rebelle, you had to invent all these different software packages. And we had to have geniuses at Imageworks, Sony Pictures, Imageworks who've been like writing code and shaders for like decades and building and building, and all the rigging software that has had to get to the point, you

know, like you're saying, like to rig something as complicated as Olivia Octavia's, you know, sort of tentacles that were like these soft robotics, you know, that are sort of pulsing and breathing the whole time while they're... I mean, there's thousands of rig points that the animators were controlling there, and the fact that it's all possible that we could think of all these different characters, but also that you had a story that said, and just had that proposition in it, "What if everybody

could wear the Spider-Man mask? What if everybody could wear the mask? And okay. Is the technology there? And the fact that it was there, honestly, the technology is not only there, but if anything, it actually forced us to sometimes be responsible. - It did. I will say one of the lucky things that we had as directors was, you know, I can use Photoshop. That's as far as I go. We got to talk, you know, go into a room, look at these beautiful images and talk to what maybe 20 years ago would've be

en very tech-minded people as artists and they responded as artists and it was about the art. It wasn't, you know, they would figure out how, you know, whatever needed to be designed to achieve the thing that we were talking about. But it was always art first. - Absolutely. - And that was really, I think, refreshing and exciting and freeing because we were all coming from this really, really creative place first. And then, you know, stuff would run through its paces and then we would start getti

ng really responsible, like, hey. - But from what you're saying, I mean, it's absolutely true. Like when I did production design on the first 3D animated film, every conversation was like, "Here's what we could do." - Right. - Yeah. - Every conversation's like, "Well, that's great. All right, there's some things you need to understand about how the computer works. And now, so let's lower your expectations." Not in a way... And then it forces you to be creative in a different way. Okay, and you m

ake great choices with the limitations. Here, because we almost had no limitations then it was like, okay, which choices would act... And for the first time we were talking with our artists about which choices would be the best to tell this story, purely as a story and creative conversation. And I think it was a revolutionary way for us to approach it. And it honestly, these like bold choices, it was harder to like stop ourselves than it was to like we didn't have to, everybody just said, "Yeah,

we can do that. Oh yeah, we can do that." - Right, Jacinda? (group laughing) It's interesting 'cause you know, I'm like you, like maybe basic Photoshop. And it's like really smart people who tell me, and I go, "Well, that looks cool. Can we make it 5% cooler? Give me 5-10% cooler." And I think what we kind of did on, you know, "Spider-Man One" was like, let's just start off, like it was like, we thought of it as like, this is our "Iron Man." Like let's get it right out of the gate so we can hop

efully do more of these. And then we did Miles, which was so much fun. And I think for a lot of us was just like, one of those projects I think we'll never forget. And then with "Spider-Man Two", it's like we're just gonna go a lot bigger. And we had a lot of conversation. I'm like, "Well, can we do this? Can we do this? Bobby, can we have a giant Sandman?" - Absolutely. - You know, how many tendrils can we have coming off the Symbiote arm and stuff like that? And I think for me, you know, I wou

ld say, you know, I'm the one who's like, "Oh, can we try this? Can we try that?" But then what's really exciting is having an idea, but then you hand it to Bobby, Jacinda, and their team and they go, "Yeah, that's cool, Bryan, but we actually can make it even cooler." And then it's like infinitely, like I think of back to like just Venom, like just Venom and starting off with like, does Venom smile? And having these 2D drawings, and then all of a sudden, you know, later we're talking about how

much drool is coming off and does the drool react realistically, and wait, you know, and then, okay, we're gonna remove the drool for this scene. We're not gonna have for this scene. And then just letting like people like Bobby and his team just go, "Why am I saying anything? Just cook. Just go. Just go." - Yeah, we spent, well, for me, I've spent at least, well, almost five years I guess, thinking about Venom and the Symbiotes and how to, you know, depict them. And I just remember when we first

started, the Symbiote's kind of like a shape shifter, right? It could become anything. And even really early on in R&D and pre-production, we had to think about what the rules were. Because originally we actually had these tentacle creatures that could be almost anything. They're all black, they're these blob monsters. And we ended up switching directions because you started realizing that if it could be anything, it's really nothing. So okay, fine. So now you have to refine it a bit more. So t

hen we started making up rules and we were like, "Well, if you're a Symbiote, does a Symbiote always have a host?" And then if it's got a host, can it be an animal? Can it be a quadruped, can it be an octopus? Is it only a human? So then we started squeezing it down some more. And ultimately because we wanna tell a human story, we said, "Okay, it's gonna be humans. They're gonna bond with humans." And then from there it starts expanding because, you know, we have Symbiote through the enemies, we

have Venom, we have characters who become Symbiote ties, like MJ, Harry and Peter. And then we start covering the entire city with Symbiotes and tentacles and things like that. So I looked at the comics and I looked at all the various depictions of the, you know, the Symbiotes and Venom and even the tentacles, and I was pretty impressed. 'cause once you dig really deep into it, you'll see that the style and the way that all the artists have interpreted these characters and the materials is very

different. Sometimes the tentacles are really fine and smooth and curvy. And other times they're very angular and they're very thick. And we have to really think about how to make a creature or creatures who are both changeable but strong at the same time. So we spent a lot of time also looking then at the materials because, you know, is it gonna be like black paint? Is it gonna be like black slime? And then ultimately we picked something that was in between, so it looks, you know, like it's ge

tting not too heavy, not too thick. So it looks like an alien material. But then the tendrils themselves were like a huge headache because they're tendrils, but they're also sentient, you know? So some of this is solved with animation, which is, you know, what Bobby and his team did an incredible job of, but then some of it would have to be solved with technology because when we do all the transformations, when, you know, Harry becomes Venom, things like that, that's way too many tentacles for a

n animator to animate by hand. So then we start getting into simulations. So we started doing simulations on how the tentacles would behave. But then the problem with that is because we're trying to simulate something that doesn't exist in real life, you can't just say, "Well, it's just gonna behave like water. Or it's gonna behave like slime or something." So then we end up doing simulations. But then there's a lot of art direction. And I think I've spent the last eight months in productions ju

st drawing tentacles, tentacles animating, tentacles moving, tentacles wrapping around things. And we were doing that I think until the day we shipped, we were still working on tentacles. - Are you giving it a base sim and then going on top of that and giving it the personality on top of like what the base sim would do? - Well, we had a base simulation, but from there you had to then art direct it by using various inputs because the Houdini artists are basically tech, they're technical, you know

? They're not hand animating it. So you have to draw over and tell them, "Hey, I want these tentacles to do this." And they're adjusting numbers to get them to behave the way- - Give those shapes those- - Yeah. - And then she's got me going, "Is it done yet?" - [Jacinda] Yeah. (laughing) - "It's gonna look good, right? It's gonna look good." And she's like, "Just shut up." (laughing) - Well, what I hope everyone noticed after the game out is how many people love your version of Venom. Because Ve

nom is such, Venom is a character. There are certain characters at Marvel where people don't like any other Super Hero. They just like Venom. - That's their one. - So whether it's Wolverine, Venom, Ghost Rider, it's usually these characters with attitude. But when you look at them, you don't have to know anything else, the design is so strong, it speaks to you with this attitude. And I think the reason why it resonated with people is because of all those discussions we had you understood there's

all these things you can do with Venom, but what is Venom about? Venom is, part is the Boogeyman, part is dark reflection of Peter, part is addiction. And did I say body horror? Body horror. What is happening to you so when you make it human and it's changing, it has that effect. So it's all that understanding of the core of the character. And as long as you have that, then you can start expanding, expanding and expanding. But it all feels right because the players, the audience know that you g

et it. - That's also one of the reasons why I was so petrified to get the character right. That's why we cast the voice of Venom last 'cause I was like, "This is too much pressure. It's too much pressure to..." I mean, 'cause that voice is a signature thing. And you're like, because if he doesn't sound, I mean, he has to look right, but if he doesn't sound right, you get worried. And I remember working with our voice, one of our dialogue managers, and I was like, "You know, like just what if it

was like someone like Tony Todd, like of Tony Todd voice." Not thinking we would ever, ever get Tony. And then Patrick, our dialogue manager, a couple weeks later goes, "You're not gonna believe this, but I have a audition recording from Tony." I'm like, "What? He's like, "Yeah." He's like, "It's really bad." Like in terms like he just did on his phone but we got all these other ones to listen to. And so I listened to all the other ones purposely 'cause I was like, "It's gotta, it's gonna be him

." And he said two lines, I'm like, "Just give him the job." - Done. - And then it's like, and that was kind of like the cherry on top of like everything. It was like, we had the story we wanted to tell with Pete, Harry, and the Symbiote. We had the character design. We started seeing how the tech was gonna work and then then voice coming online. And I remember him recording his first, you know, recording those first lines for that reveal trailer where he just says, "Yes, we will." And it's like

, you're like- - Chills. - Oh yeah. - Total chills. - That's great. It's so much fun. And those are the kind of things, as hard as all this is, like those are the memories you just try to remember. It's like those are those just when that thing finally clicks, you know? And it's just awesome. - And then, like you said, once Venom became pretty much human that was actually good news for us animation wise, because we know this, so we could, you know, just make sure that people believe that charact

er, they believe him physically, they believe him emotionally. They hear that voice and it comes from that body, you know, as much as we can. So if we can get everyone to believe in it. And then exactly what Jacinda said, it took the entire studio to make symbiotic effects. Like there's no one person who gets to take credit on that one. Animation wise, there was a lot of really scrappy old school animating of tubes for years. - Yep. - And so a lot of that stuff is that, but there's so much more

that ended up going on top of it, you know, things that you're like, "Really? We're gonna have that?" And it worked and it did all come together in the end. It was quite late and we were all stressed out and tired. But it was good. Like the whole team came together and made that character as believably as we can at this day and age. You know? So. - We didn't have Venom in our movie, so there were no creative challenges. (group laughing) - Well, I will say what's interesting is that, you know, yo

u said looking at the different comics that Venom was in and the different artists that would handle 'em, that's, I think the unique thing about comics is that it's interpreted month to month sometimes by different artists and it's I think your understanding of what makes the character work. You might not be able to honor every single artist's interpretation of it, but understanding what makes it unique and what your mind's eye saw while reading those comics, it comes across. - Well, you know, i

t was interesting, like when we started working on "Spider-Man", I assumed everybody was like me. It was like, oh, action figures comics, and then TV shows, movies, and then, you know, and it was like, "Oh no, I came in from that way." "I came in from this way." "I never read a comic. I only saw..." And it's kind of that same thing of like, at the end of the day, what are the common characteristics between all these different mediums that we want to get? And that's the same thing, you know, like

now when we talk about it, particularly a character like Venom. - But even though he wasn't in our movie, there actually were a few creative challenges. And actually one of the biggest things that we had to overcome, like constantly was how much we had to balance, you know, there's a lot of spectacle in our movie. You know, like if we stand back, like Joaquim and I, we stand way back, like one of the, like in Kemp, we would be standing from that bird's eye, you know, mile high view. There's a l

ot of spectacle we put into this movie and trying to decide like how much of it to put in so we didn't overwhelm our characters. I mean, and it's like you guys are saying like, "Wow, you put so much into this movie." And that's what I keep saying is like, "We almost had too much power." We almost had too much, like unlimited, like, we had this embarrassment of riches. And the idea creatively that like, there'd be all this incredible crashing and bashing, but at the same time, we had to make sure

that you could follow Miles in his emotional journey and that he wouldn't get lost and that the characters, you know, wouldn't be swallowed up by all this spectacle. And that you could track what was going on. And then we had all these like complicated, I remember for the longest time, I mean, all of our creative challenges were story. It was almost like technology for the first time wasn't our limitation. Our tech, our honestly- - [Joaquim] Technology was sort of waiting on us to go, like, "Al

l right, guys, come on." - Like what do you guys wanna do? And we're like, "Oh no." Like oh geeze, we're used to being backed into choices. But here it was like, no, no, we can do anything. - First of all, we're fans of the films. Like we really like, I mean, hopefully- - It's a reverse. - I love it and I love that, you know, and you know, in the first game we were like, "Hey, we'll do all these suits. People love suits. Well, there's these really cool suits from this first film. Can we get 'em

in the game?" And then obviously when we made Miles, we took it a step further. We're like, "We're gonna do the suits and we're gonna try to emulate the animation style." And I think for me, seeing that, you know, in nine years of working on this franchise, that's one of the craziest things I've ever seen that not only did someone have the idea to do that, but like, we worked with all of your team and our animators is going, "We can make the whole city feel like it normally does, but this charac

ter's gonna animate differently." And then I remember, you know, we were working on this part, well, we'd done the suits, we did the suits plus anime, we gotta step it up even more. And I remember sitting on multiple calls with both of you. - That's right. - And Kemp, and going like, "Well, what can we do?" And we batted around a ton of ideas. I remember, I actually remember being in Washington, DC at my in-law's house, and we did a Zoom and I was like, "We're trying to figure out what we could

do." And I was like, "Well, we have these Spider-Bots." - Yeah. - "We have these Spider-Bots. Is there any..." Because we had this really, we used in "Spider-Man One" we had these backpacks and everybody loved collecting the backpacks. It kind of told like, you could learn more about Peter's eight years of being Spider-Man through the backpacks. And we're like, "We want that kind of collectible." And we're like, "Well, Pete and Miles have these Spider-Bots, this being for them. Well, what if the

re were Spider-Bots from all over the multiverse?" And we were like, and I remember going like, "What do you think?" And then you guys brought up a character that didn't make into the film. And we were like- - That's right. - And we're like, "Well, what if you collect all the bots and then you get this like location." And we had even Ganke involved in it. And it just kind of... I think what we did with the Spider-Bots is an example of like how we make games. Everything's just collaboration, trad

ing different ideas. - It's a whole collaboration. Yeah. - And we love that because the goal is always, in the game, whenever there's side mission, side quests, we don't want the player to feel like, "Why did you make me do this? This has nothing to do with anything else." So the goal is always, here's the main mission. If we have a side mission, how can we make it connect either thematically to the main story, or it echoes ideas or it reveals more about character? And in the first game with the

backpacks, that came from, well, if I was Spider-Man on rooftops, I would leave myself backpacks. I would've a PowerBar. I would have water in it. I would have first aid. That's a very Spider-Man thing. - Makes sense. - He's not a billionaire with his cave. He's running around the city. So he would have to store these backpacks. So then as a player, yes, it's a side quest. Yes, you're gaining points, but you're learning more about Peter. And that's something that Spider-Man would do. When you t

old me the Spider-Bot idea, it's like, yes, because as you say, what do we care about? Story. And you had these Spider-Bots. Here's a Spider-Bot that is themed to Spider-Man 2099. Why would this be in our world? So then when you came with the story idea, it's like, great, you can just play the side quest and collect it and that's cool. But you added that layer of story. And then if you go and play it, there's a connection- - There's a direct connection. - To the film. - Well, the other thing was

, I will tell you guys, I haven't told these guys a story, but I remember, so I'm working one night and I get a phone call and it's from Yuri Lowenthal who plays Peter Parker. And he goes, "I gotta tell you what I just did." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "I just recorded lines for the movie." And I know Yuri really well, and I could just sense the smile he had on his face that he got to be part of it. And I think that's the thing. I think we always look at how can we, first of all, one, not like

we all know we're working on complicated things that take a lot of time to make and we also don't wanna do something that like, makes it harder for you to explain in the movie. Same thing with the game. - Sure. - We want it to be a, you know, if you know, you know, and then, but there's a little bit extra. And I think to see the cross collaboration between the team... And I remember we must been like four or five different meetings- - Oh my gosh. Yeah. - Of finally getting on this, you know, fig

uring like, how can we make it work? 'Cause like, you know, we're like, I'm like, "Well, we wanna do more, but like, we gotta get this game done." And you guys, "Well, we gotta get this film done." And it's like, you know, we're kind of going back and forth and I feel like it's just one of those things where you look back and you're like, "I can't believe we were able to do that and have that kind of collaboration. - And I will say, I think it's generational because I do, you know, I've been aro

und long enough now to have worked for the previous couple generations where there was just this like, I don't even wanna call it like a competitive nature, but there was sort of this separation where it was like, no, no, no. That thing's tied up in this thing, you can't do it. If you wanna do it, as a fan and you know the fans want to see it and you know you can do it right and you can do justice and you're not doing it as a, you know, as this sort of throwaway, then it's worth doing and it's w

orth exploring and it's worth maybe staying, you know, up a couple extra days to make it happen. - Exactly. - Yeah, I was gonna say that was, I can't believe we pulled it off because that came in so late. (laughing) And I remember when Bryan told us, he was like, "Okay, we're gonna do this crossover, but don't worry, we've got some assets from the animation." And we're like, "Oh, okay." Get the animation assets and we're like, "Okay, we can't use this." (laughing) - Oh. - You're welcome. - Yes,

thank you. Thank you, everyone. So, what we ended up doing is we took what we could use and then we had to rebuild it. But then because we can't take a lot of the animation assets, we actually, then we look at trailers of the game. - Oh, wow. - And then we've asked for stills from you guys, and just said, "Okay, how do we put this thing together?" And then same thing with the Spider-Bots, because at the time, that wasn't something that we said we were gonna do. And we had no, who was gonna do th

e Spider-Bots? We'd only built one that was part of the original gameplay. And we were racking our brains trying to figure it out. But one of the artists who worked on the Spider-Bot was just like, "Oh, you know, I mean, you mean like this?" And he just did a paint. And all of a sudden you're like, is that a J Jonah Jameson Spider-Bot, a little mustache?" - Yes. Yes, it is. (Joaquim laughing) - And then like, it seemed like every couple days he was like, just like, "Oh, I just did this on my lun

ch break. I just did this whatever." And like all the Spider-Bots in the game were actually done by this one artist. And I guess he's- - That's cool. - It kind of goes to show that if you're having fun, it's not work. - I think that's the key. - Yeah. - Yeah. Because it was completely unexpected. We were trying to figure out how to do it, and he just said, "This is the best thing ever." And he was so passionate about it. - And I love that some of the same artists that worked on the film, like th

ought to collaborate with you guys on the game. And I know there's like animators that have also like worked on the movie. - Oh yeah. - And I think that's just wonderful that there's this like, there's this universe of people that are sort of connected and passionate about these characters. - It was actually, you know, obviously when the game comes out, you start to follow certain people and they, you know, the social media, they'll post about their experience. And I was tracking Chris and where

he was and when he was playing, and he's like, "I just saw something. I can't believe it's in the game." And I was like, "What he's thinking of?" I was like, "Oh, it's the 'Spider-Verse' connection." - There you go. - When he got the finale, that's the thing he's talking about. - Well, I'll tell you that hearing all the last minute scrambling and all the hustle and all the collaboration, it paid off. I'll tell you this, for the Marvel Games team, as we're getting closer and closer to your movie

's premiere and different posters were coming out, individually, and this is all, we weren't back in the office again, we're all in COVID and we're all separated, but we're all individually scanning each poster. And when we would all see our Spider-Man with the white spider, we would instantly take a picture, share it with each other. - That's amazing. - And we'd say, (gasping) "We exist!" - That's amazing. - And eventually when we were in the theater, I was mentioning it earlier, I was sitting

there and when that scene happened, I couldn't help myself. I was alone. But I pointed and said, (gasping) "That's our Spider-Man." So when you talked about telling your own story, in a way you told our story. And so we saw ourselves- - That's awesome. - In the poster, in the movie, we said, "We existed." We created something that is being added to the toy chest and you embraced it. And to see that circle of life. We all look at the comics, we create things, we get inspired, then the people that

, then it goes back, people who make the comics see what we do and put it into the comics. They look at what you're doing in the film. And this whole interchange of ideas and cool stuff is so cool to see. And it says to the audience, maybe those 13-year-old kids like we were, sitting at home and saying, "I want to do that when they see how much we work together and that we're all fans and we put our fandom on screen and then hopefully the next generation says, "I want to do that." - And going ev

en further, I think the fact that we, you know, like it was, we saw that relationship build with the audience too from the first film. So in the second film we were actually even more prepared for that. And, you know, even while we were making the first film, seeing that like, what are people out in the audience passionate about that we don't even know about? And watching people get excited and knowing that you got excited to see yourselves represented and see people's favorite spider people sho

w up. - And people on our crew that were like playing your game while they were working on the film. Like, we almost, I mean, we almost put one of your guys' glitches that made it into, like we almost put like a heater, like a space heater. - Oh. - Just like swinging through. - Yes, yes. From the Miles game, there was a space heater. (group laughing) Well there's a cube one in this game. So we fixed that. - You have plenty of tech- - We call Spider Cube. Spider Cube, right? - I think the fact th

at we had a crew member that brought that up and said like, "What about if there's like a space heater?" Like that's true love. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah. - Also like on a, I think definitely like when we made the first film we, beyond even on the these beautiful stories that you guys are telling about individuals, I think we didn't even realize before that first movie came out and certainly we felt it the entire time we were making this movie how important Miles Morales became to an entire culture of

people around the world. And it was almost overwhelming to feel that on the first movie. I remember we were making it and we were like, "This is really cool. Like, I love this." But the tears that people would come up to us with and the representation that people felt, and just how powerful it was for them. And then on the second film, we knew we had to do more. We knew that, you know, we had to live up to this idea that we had established that anyone can wear the mask. And it was an incredible

gift and it was an incredible challenge, but it was an important one that I think we all took with us into this and said, "We can do even more and we can show even more and create even more of that feeling and still put Miles at the center of it." Because we had this, you know, we had to make sure it was still his movie. You know, and somehow all of that was such a huge challenge. But it was the most worthwhile amazing thing that I think I've ever gotten to be a part of. And then it was incredib

le to see when this film came out, there were things that you didn't even know if people would see. You didn't even know if people would notice. There were things we put so far in the background 'cause there's hundreds of spider people, there's things we did so quickly and so fast. And, you know, whether they're little Easter eggs or whether they... But we learned on the first film that these fans really are paying attention in a way that I don't think I was prepared for. - I don't think we had

an ability with CRT TVs to pay attention because the fidelity just wasn't there. It was like a fuzzy thing that we would like, you couldn't catch it. - Kemp what was it like for you, who didn't work on the first film, to now join? Like what kind of pressure, what kind of, like, what did you, like what was it like for you to now join and go... I mean, 'cause that, I mean, that film was so well received, won all the awards, now you're coming and joining. Like what was it like for you to join that

team? - It was exciting, but it was also like I don't wanna do anything they did in the first film. That was my attitude from the get go. Anything- - That was all our attitudes. - Anything was just like anything from the first film, everything that people loved, we loved it too, and we don't wanna do any of that. - And I have to say- - Wanna do something completely different. - And I have to say like I was so glad that they were, my fellow director, that I got to make a movie with them because I

wouldn't have wanted to work on the second one if they said, "Can you just do more of that?" The fact that they were like, "We're all three gonna lock arms and we're not gonna do anything we did before." - Yeah. And we didn't like , I'll speak to one specific thing that I love so much about what we did do with our film, and it really goes back to comic books. In the first film at the very end, Miguel O'Hara first shows up. And then of course he's in our film. Miguel looks completely different.

- He does. - Yeah. - We don't explain it. - That's right. - His costume is different. Other than Oscar Isaac's voice, Lyla looks different. When you read comic books and a new artist comes on, your characters just look different. It's the hand of a new artist. You know what I mean? When you go from Jim Byrne to Paul Smith, suddenly characters have different hairstyles. And everything we tried to do was like we're gonna show the world that these are the hands of different artists. This isn't the

same team. Phil and Chris are still involved, but like let's just don't explain it. It's a comic book. The hands of a new artist are gonna give you something that looks different. Even Miles' world, which was our template in the first film, that's a world that's established, Justin can confirm, we rebuilt it from the ground up. It doesn't even look the same. Miles' world in our film doesn't look the same as Miles' World in the first film. It's just our version of it. - But that's what you love a

bout, you know, telling these stories and bringing on new creative voices. You want it to feel different. You know, and I think- - That's how you get the best comics, right? It's like- - And Phil and Chris are fantastic at allowing that to happen. You know, they sort of, they bring new voices in and they let those voices be heard. (static crackling) I mean, look, I think there's also an inherent thing that happens with your guys' game specifically is that, you know, my wife's not a gamer, she ap

preciates all the stuff that we do, she appreciates the creativity, but her, my kid, it's like a visualized wish fulfillment. You know, when I'm playing that game, like she stops in her tracks and she goes, "Oh, All right, what's going on? Are you controlling this right now, like?" That thing, again, it expands and it opens up to feeling an emotion that isn't necessarily tied to a specific narrative. It's a thing that's inside of us that you guys are able to tap into that I don't even, I mean, m

aybe the movies do on some level, they let a certain level of freedom. But that to me is like an intangible that's like something that it's unique to you guys, it's unique to your industry. - Yeah. I think for me, when I think about "Greater. Together", I think back to something I said earlier was what I really don't think we set out but ended up being was that the Pete/Miles relationship probably for me ended up being the strongest relationship in the game because of how much their relationship

evolves through some good times, but also some bad times where it was Peter being there for Miles at the start, where Miles is more for Peter at the end and they grow. And I think about my time at Insomniac and working with these two over here for now, you know, 15 years and over 10 years with this one, and thinking about, I would, you know, I hate when I say like, oh, you're the creative director or you're the one with a vision. No, that's a title. But the truth is, I'm a better Insomniac and

a better creative director because of these two. I'm a better person because of these two. Because Bobby's the one who's sitting there in a meeting going, "Hey, Bry, like enough is enough." Or like Jacinda saying like, "Hey, I think we should do it this way." And I think, I hope, what I love is that, for me, the game represents what it feels like to be part of this team and this group. Like, I mean, they are my, I mean, I spend as much time with them as I do my real family. They are my family. -

Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I would stand in front of a bus for them. And I love how they've made a little kids' dreams come true. - That's beautiful, man. - Yeah. Now I was gonna just wrap it up too for the three of us, because for me "Be Greater. Together." does refer to our core group. And it's not just us three, you know, there's more to them than obviously our entire team. But I mean, we've been with this franchise, same people for like eight years. - Eight, nine years. Yeah. - Living this. And I

feel like that's pretty unusual, you know, in media or any great franchise to have the same people. And these projects are, I mean, you all know, you're creative people too. It's like they take a lot out of you personally, you know, mentally, emotionally, but I think having people around you to like help you, you know, and to understand what you're going through, but then also to make you a better, you know, creator too is something that's really unique in, you know, it's really unique to me in

the industry, that's what I feel at least. And I feel very fortunate every day, you know, to be working with you guys and, you know, and the rest of the team. - In the end, I mean, we are only as good as the people we work with. - 100%. - And we are only as good as the effort and the artistry and the passion of those people that we are surrounding ourselves with. And I don't think the three of us could take credit for anything that's really onscreen, truly without mentioning that there were a th

ousand other people. - Yeah. Literally. - That actually- - 100% that. - That actually, you know, made us greater. We were greater together. And you know, I sometimes think like, in a funny way, you know, of the analogy of like, yeah, there's this like invisible dartboard that I can somehow see somewhere out there that Kemp can see, that Joaquim can see, and we give a thousand darts to people and there's a thousand people, give a thousand darts, and they all stand up to throw it. And our job is s

imply to just go, "Little bit this way, a little bit that way, okay, now let go." And then, "Okay, here's another one. All right. A little bit this way, a little bit that way." But honestly, they're the one throwing the darts. They're the ones hitting the bullseyes. And we're not doing any of that other than trying to nudge the hand, the arm a little bit closer to that target that we're seeing out there, but they're the ones who make it possible even for us to see what's in our head. And they're

the ones that really, their faith in us and the fact that we do think of ourselves as a family of artists who are working together, and their faith in us is a huge, immense responsibility. And I think we constantly would have to like mention and thank them and constantly we would go to them and say, "How can we do this? And is there a way we can do this better?" Is there, you know, hey, come to us. We give you permission. Tell us how this could actually get even bigger, better. What can you add

to it? Because I'll let you throw the dart. - And by the way, it's okay to fail. - Oh, yes. - Like, we're gonna fail plenty and that's what's gonna allow us to find the light at the end of the tunnel. - I always joke is failure is just one step closer to success. - That's it. That's it. - Like it's just you gotta go through that. And I would never ever fault someone for trying something and it didn't work. Like, that's just creative kryptonite and you gotta let people go big, go bold. And espec

ially if they're passionate about it. If they're in, if they get excited about it, like with the Spider-Bots, you just let 'em go. Because what they're gonna bring back is beyond anything you ever could of expected. - That's right. - You know, when you are talking about these big themes of family and responsibility and destiny, it reminds me of something I learned from Stanley, who co-created almost all the characters. Not only did he say, "Hey, every comic could be someone's first comic", which

guided us on how do we make the story. What does that mean? It means welcome everyone. Make it as accessible as possible. There's no level of fan. We're all fans. He also said, "At Marvel, what do we do? We're storytellers. And sometimes when you first get to Marvel, you'll be asked, 'What kind of stories does Marvel tell?' And you may say, 'Oh, we tell Super Hero stories.' We say yes. But underneath that, what do we do? We tell moral fables. Every story is about something, a theme. And hopeful

ly we're saying something to the world to say, we don't have all the answers, but we're gonna ask questions and we're gonna talk about characters that we hope we act like. And through those moral fables, give people hope, inspire them. What that does it's the engine." Stan also says, "A story without a theme is like a human without a soul. And who puts the soul there? People. So it's all of you, the creators with your ideas, you come and you inject that soul into the body. And that's what connec

ts to people. When you tell your moral fables, it's your beliefs, it's what you want to tell, what you want to talk about and the people feel that soul inside your story." (triumphant music) (web whooshing) (air whooshing) (web whooshing) (Venom hissing) (static crackling) (bell dings)