8 Years Later, Marvel’s “Perfect” Spider-Man Movie Hits Harder Than Any MCU Blockbuster

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse arrived at the most ideal moment imaginable. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s multiverse content wasn’t around yet, allowing it to capitalize on a comic book storyline trope before it became oversaturated, and carefully cherry-picked which Spider-People it would feature in its relatively small ensemble cast. In particular, selecting Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Gwen, Peni Parker and SP//der, and Spider-Ham was inspired.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was equally influential, bringing Spider-Man’s most popular variant, Spider-Man 2099, back into the spotlight and also shining a light on characters like Spider-Punk and Pavitr Prabhakar. It may have taken a while for an actual Spider-Verse movie to be made, and a while longer before we’d see how influential these Spider-Verse movies truly are, but three Spider-Man-related projects are finally leaning as heavily as possible on them.

Spider-Noir is the First of Many Spin-Offs

Spider-Noir releases this spring, and it’s already set to be quite jarring. Indeed, Nicolas Cage playing this version of Spider-Man Noir will undoubtedly have some audiences believing it is the same Noir variant as the one seen in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but he apparently won’t be.

Spider-Noir supposedly stars Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, not Peter Parker, and its tagline is, “with no power comes no responsibility.” This tagline is odd if it is meant to be taken literally, as it suggests he’ll be web-swinging through the city and experiencing an “existential crisis” without actually having been bitten by a spider freed from a spider-god idol.

Either way, Spider-Noir is undoubtedly riding Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s coattails and hoping to capitalize on how beloved the character was in the animated movie. Spider-Man Noir had a phenomenal debut in his self-titled miniseries almost 20 years ago, which preceded his appearance as a fantastic playable character in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, but it wasn’t until Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that his popularity skyrocketed once again.

It’s unknown how much of Spider-Man Noir we’ll see in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, considering how little of him we saw in its predecessor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for him to have a role that’s comparable to the one he had in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This way, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse could even have a live-action Nicolas Cage cameo, with him and his animated Peter Parker counterpart interacting, and it wouldn’t be out of place at all.

Spider-Gwen is A Long Time Coming

A Spider-Gwen/Spider-Woman movie is in development, spinning out from the popularity of the character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Unlike Spider-Man Noir, however, Gwen is unquestionably more popular and ubiquitously known, and there are countless unique ways that a Spider-Gwen story could be told in a spin-off movie.

Plus, since Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse told an origin story for its Spider-Gwen succinctly, a spin-off for the character may elect to go in a completely different direction to avoid obvious parallels. Spider-Noir is strangely distancing itself from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Spider-Man Noir, for instance, and that could be how a Spider-Gwen movie decides to go about its own spin-off.

Otherwise, it seemed like it’d only be a matter of time before Spider-Gwen had her own movie, whether it turns out to be live-action or animated. Spider-Gwen is basically a main character in Sony’s Spider-Verse movies, and giving Gwen her own movie after the last Spider-Verse movie is released in theaters would likely be a boon for audiences who adore her character and want to see or learn more about her.

Spider-Punk is a Big Question Mark

Like Spider-Gwen, Spider-Punk is also slated to receive his own movie. Hobie Brown’s Spider-Punk is arguably the least popular of the three and would most likely be known outside the Spider-Verse movies for the cosmetic skin he has in Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, though that could give his movie an edge.

Daniel Kaluuya is reprising the role, not unlike Nicolas Cage reprising Spider-Man Noir, but fans should anticipate that it may not be the same iteration as the one in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, either. The direction it could go in is anyone’s guess, and yet it’s neat that Daniel Kaluuya is reportedly co-writing the script and is heavily invested in the character.

Without a Spider-Ham or Peni Parker movie on the horizon, it appears as if Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Gwen, and Spider-Punk have all made the biggest impact as Spider-Verse characters. Ironically, there also isn’t a Miles Morales spin-off movie that’s been announced or revealed. If nothing else, Miles hopefully isn’t in the spin-off conversation because of how intimidated any filmmaker should rightfully be by the idea of following the Spider-Verse trilogy with a brand-new Miles story.

The Spider-Verse movies’ influence is finally coming to fruition in tangential projects, and it will be incredibly exciting to see how well they fare as reflections of the iterations that fans have fallen in love with via Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.