Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of the most talked about movies of 2023. When the movie premiered, there were talks that different versions of the film exist – as is becoming a trend among the fandoms of some of the biggest superhero movies recently.
There have been videos of these supposed alternate cuts circulating on the internet. The snippets show certain scenes or sequences looking a bit different, with fans theorizing that the different versions play on the concept of infinite universes.
However, it turns out that there are no alternate cuts for Across the Spider-Verse. The videos that have been presented as evidence of different versions of the movie are simply comparing the final cut with a less polished variant that was released for translation and ended up being pirated.
Across the Spider-Verse producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller recently sat down with The Wrap to talk about the “alternate versions” of the movie. According to the producers, what the fans watched was an international version that was sent to the French censor board for ratings.
“It’s a little overblown, but the main thing that happened was when we made the international version of the movie, it had to be done almost two months before the movie came out for translations,” Miller shared. “And there’s a French censor board that has to see the film as it is to decide what the rating of the film is that is used throughout Europe.”
“And we were not allowed to change that version,” Lord added. “But the other versions kept improving. And so when people compare it to the most frequently pirated versions [online], those are the first international ones. That was the version that some people who don’t go to the movie theater to see the movie saw and that’s the version of the movie they know the best.”
Miller explained that in the remaining weeks before release, Sony Pictures ImageWorks tweaked and improved on a few scenes. He said that “there were little changes that were made to improve it along the way.”
“Yeah, it’s mostly improved effects shots and a couple of audio fixes, and a couple of things that we did for our own vanity here and there, but you can think of the digital and home video release as the posterity edition,” Lord adds.
The producers made it clear that there are no alternative or multiverse versions of the movie. This makes sense as the studio would have to get every version approved by the MPA which would be a real pain.
“We’re not as clever as people gave us credit for that we would scheme to put different versions out,” Lord said.
