Spider-Man: No Way Home isn’t just the best live-action Spider-Man so far; it’s also the first live-action multiverse story featuring different versions of Peter Parker. But the film does more than just give Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield the chance to be Spider-Men together on the big screen. It’s a movie that firmly attaches Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) to Marvel’s more popular MCU. No Way Home ties the two franchises into the same multiverse, which means the possibilities are limitless. With that in mind, fans will inevitably speculate about whether or not Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is part of the same giant world as the others. Thankfully, it’s not just wishful thinking. The producers of the Spider-Verse movies already have already confirmed a link to the MCU.
The multiverse unleashed
No Way Home might be the first live-action Spider-Man movie with a multiverse, but there was another multiversal Spider-Man movie before it. That’s why we keep mentioning the “live-action” element.
Sony first experimented with the multiverse in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which turned out to be a huge success. Every Spider-Man movie draws huge crowds, especially movies tied to the MCU. But it’s likely that Into the Spider-Verse would have done even better at the box office had it been connected to the MCU.
Now that No Way Home has opened the door, it’s possible that all of the Spider-Man variants in Into the Spider-Verse are part of the MCU. That’s because the SSU and MCU are now connected.
Similarly, the sequel will tell a story that can happen in the same giant multiverse. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) is set to premiere on October 7th.
Across the Spider-Verse and the MCU
Following that logic, seeing Spider-Man variants from the Spider-Verse stories cross paths with the MCU Spider-Man would make sense. That doesn’t mean Sony and Marvel will ever make it happen, though.
Thankfully, we don’t have to speculate any longer. The Across the Spider-Verse producers confirmed that their stories can exist in the same multiverse as the rest of the Spider-Man adventures. Phil Lord and Chris Miller appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where they tackled the implications of the multiverse.
Asked about a potential connection to the live-action stories, Miller said that “the multiverse is big and wide. Why would you think a multiverse, in which many things are possible, that [those things are] not related?”
“Everything’s possible except for this one thing that everyone wants,” Lord said.
Again, that doesn’t mean the Across the Spider-Verse movies will tie into the MCU in any way. The upcoming movie is just the first part of another series featuring Miles Morales (Shamiek Moore) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld).
The producers made it clear that they keep tabs on the live-action movies with the help of Spider-Man franchise producer Amy Pascal. They want to ensure that the Spider-Verse movies tell different stories than the live-action movies.
Mixing animation with live-action
“You’re collectively advancing this humongous mega-story, and you have total control over your little sliver of it,” Lord explained. “And everything else you just have to communicate as much as possible, make adjustments… It’s almost like a film school exercise where you’re like, ‘Okay, we were gonna do that, but they did it first, so we’re gonna have to do something different.'”
Whether the characters in Across the Spider-Verse will ever meet Holland’s Spider-Man or not, there’s one important note to make here that doesn’t require an official confirmation from Sony or Marvel. All of the massive multiverse stories can contain both animation and live-action elements. That’s something the Spider-Verse saga has yet to explore, but Marvel is already doing it on Disney Plus.
What If…? is the first animated TV show included in the MCU. And we’re going to see at least one character from the show in live-action. Rumors suggest that Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell) will appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness next.
Also, What If…? featured Spider-Man variants from different universes that could always appear in other adventures.
Moreover, Marvel will make more animated TV shows that will be part of the MCU. A What If…? season 2 is in the works already. On top of that, we have three other standalone MCU animated projects: Marvel Zombies, Spider-Man: Freshman Year, and X-Men ‘97.
Put differently, it might only be a matter of time until some of the Across the Spider-Verse characters appear in live-action movies. We’ll just have to wait and see whether the upcoming Spider-Verse movies include any Easter eggs that Sony and Marvel might use to connect the Miles Morales adventures to any parts of the SSU and MCU.
