Trailer of the Week - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

So it's a bit late, been busy at Worldcon in Dublin, but I wanted to write at least something on here, so let's do something related to my weekend.  On Sunday the latest Hugo Awards got announced, and it was quite the evening, from the first acceptance speech onwards.  Given the number of women and non-caucasian creators who received awards, I think it's safe to say that the days of the Sad Puppy movement are well and truly dead.  I was in the bar when a lot of the awards were announced, there were some big cheers for quite a few of the announcements including everyone going nuts when AO3 received the award for "Best Related Work".  Another one that got a great response was Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, which went to today's title...

I didn't do a top ten movies of 2018 list, but be assured that if I had, Spider-Verse would have absolutely made it. In fact, I'm toying with doing with a top ten of the decade list, and this is a solid possibility for being on there too!  When I first heard about this as a project, I was more than a bit suspicious of it, as, y'know, Sony hasn't had much of a good track record with the Spidey rights after 2004.  It did seem at the time that this was some cheap thing to keep their claim on the property whilst the MCU was doing stuff with him.  But then this trailer came out, and suddenly I was interested.  Then more and more details were revealed, and it looked more and more promising.  And my word, the finished product did not disappoint at all.  It's a visual game-changer, superb in terms of representation in film with its "Anyone can wear the mask" message, and uses it's multiverse concept extremely well, which makes it well suited for a Hugo win.  Also, for a Marvel property not made directly by Disney, winning Best Animated Feature is even more of an achievement.

So why then is it the lowest performing Spider-Man film so far, when it's by far the most critically acclaimed?  Now it didn't do awfully, it did make a profit, but still not near the box office for the others.  It is on BoxOfficeMojo as number one for Sony Pictures Animation, but looking at the rest of the titles on that list makes it clear that's not much of an achievement?  Oh, and for how much bloody Venom out performed it by, when that one is a clear mess, what the hell is going on here?  I'm not going to go full tin-foil hat theory on here, but I will make a few guesses.  I think part of it might be fatigue, as this is the third new film Spidey continuity since 2012.  Maybe it's because of the difference in branding from the MCU.  It could be because that December was insanely packed with blockbusters.  I don't think there's a single magic bullet that will explain it.

The good thing though is that it has firmly established itself as a critical and fan favourite, as the recent win has shown.  It has made characters like Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen mainstream, giving a lot of kids role-models they have needed for so long; I'm willing to bet Halloween this year is going to have a lot of adorable Spider-kids of all kinds.  One legacy I loved online was the meme for Spidersonas, a great display of creativity carrying on the film's main message.  So whilst it wasn't as big a success as the others, it's definitely going to age well I reckon, not least for showing new possibilities with the animation medium.  Hey Sony, Marvel, if you are thinking of a follow-up, here's a tip; more multi-verse stuff, this time bring in Tom Holland and do it Roger Rabbit style, him live-action, the rest animated as before.  You know it would work!