Good news, Spidey fans: Miles Morales is suiting up again. A sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is headed to theaters on April 8, 2022, according to a brief tease posted on the Sony Pictures Animation Twitter feed.
That an Into the Spider-Verse follow-up is on the way doesn’t come as a huge surprise. Shortly after the animated feature’s 2018 debut, news broke that Sony was working on at least two more Spider-verse projects. One is said to be a direct sequel focusing on the relationship between Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, while the other will star Spider-Gwen as the lead of an all-female team of spider-themed heroes.
April 8, 2022 🕷 #SpiderVerse pic.twitter.com/3vG2PJF3L2
— Sony Pictures Animation (@SonyAnimation) November 1, 2019
Into the Spider-Verse writer Phil Lord and producer Chris Miller, who together directed The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, are also overseeing multiple television shows for Sony based on various Spider-Man characters. However, those series are slated to be live-action projects, and it’s not clear if they’re directly tied to Into the Spider-Verse‘s continuity.
In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Miles Morales takes on the Spider-Man mantle after his dimension’s Peter Parker is killed in a battle against Kingpin and the Green Goblin. Thankfully, young Miles doesn’t have to learn the ropes alone. In his journey to bring down Kingpin, Miles is reluctantly joined by allies from across the “spider-verse,” including an alternate Peter Parker, Spider-Gwen, the fatalistic Spider-Man Noir, the anime-inspired Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham, a cartoon pig wearing a Spider-Man suit.
The film launched to fantastic reviews — in our opinion, it’s the very best Spider-Man movie ever made — and won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
In addition the Spider-verse franchise and Miller and Lord’s television projects, Sony is also trying to establish its own cinematic universe centered on Spider-Man, who the studio owns the rights to. Venom 2, Morbius, and Madame Web, all of which are based on Spider-Man side characters, are all in various states of production. In addition, Sony and Disney will continue to share the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, for at least two more movies, following a scare earlier this summer when negotiations between the two studios briefly broke down, sending fans into a tizzy.