‘The Legend of Korra’s Joaquim Dos Santos will be joined by ‘Soul’s Kemp Powers and the first ‘Spider-Verse’s Justin K. Thompson to direct the highly awaited Oscar-winning animated feature’s sequel.
Three is a lucky number! Joaquim Dos Santos (The Legend of Korra, Voltron: Legendary Defender) will be joined by Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami, Soul) and Justin K. Thompson (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) to form a power trio of directors for the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel.
“The crew behind Into the Spider-Verse set such a ridiculously high bar, and we’re humbled to take on the challenge of charting the next chapter in the story of Miles Morales,” the directing team said in a joint statement.
Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman and produced by the power duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the groundbreaking 2018 computer and hand-drawn animated comic adventure follows the story of Miles Morales, a boy of Black and Latino descent, rather than Peter Parker, in an alternate-universe visual tour de force that boldly stated, “Anyone can wear the mask!” The wildly entertaining film validated the superhero-meets-adult-animation genre, leading the Sony Pictures Animation movie to an Oscar win for Best Animated Feature, a Golden Globe for Best Animated Motion Picture, and a bevy of other awards and accolades.
While not much is known of the sequel’s plot, audiences could be getting another Spider-Person.
“We are so lucky to have Joaquim, Justin, and Kemp on the Spider-Verse team,” Lord and Miller said in a statement. “We are huge fans of Joaquim’s work — he makes his characters so heartfelt and unique, and he can tell an emotional story with an action sequence the way a musical does through a song. Justin is a maverick filmmaker who relentlessly pursues visual innovation and surprise but always in support of the emotional storytelling. Kemp’s work is incisive and ambitious and funny — with a writer’s wisdom and a director’s heart — he just knows what matters in every scene.”
Lord, Miller, Amy Pascal, Avi Arad, and Christina Steinberg are set to return as producers, with Alonzo Ruvalcaba co-producing. Spider-Verse director Peter Ramsey will executive produce with Aditya Sood.
The sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is set to premiere on Oct. 7, 2022.
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