news culture “Working 11 hours a day, 7 days a week” Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s success has come at a price… Some artists have complained about the insane workload.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a hit, there’s no denying it. But at what cost? Tongues loosen and begin to portray us as more messy behind the scenes…
Spider-Man: On the other side of the Spider-Verse, a lump shaped by pain
After the fall of The Lightning, Spider-Man in Spider-Verse just topped the box office again. If the success, whether commercial or critical, of the continuation of Spider-Man: New Generation is therefore no longer provable, its origin seems more controversial. Many of the artists who worked on the film spoke to them vulture to denounce a chaotic development. And yes, crunch culture isn’t just prevalent in the video game space. Pour Spider-Man: Via the Spider-Versewe would actually be talking about 11 hours of work per day and more than 70 per week (understand there a production of 7 days/7 hours). And according to the four people who agreed to testify anonymously, there is a very specific reason for doing so: Phil Lord’s way.
It’s a bit like taking a whole group of employees to build a building without a plan. First, they are asked to place bricks on top of each other. Then we ask the carpenters to lay the wood, set the window frames, set up scaffolding here. And there we tell them, “Oh no, actually take off the entire bottom part.” Now find people who can put bricks on top of each other over and over again and then watch them get destroyed every day…
Nathan*
Lord is a big name in animated films. With his sidekick Chris Miller, he celebrated great successes such Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, La Grande Aventure Lego, Spider-Man: New Generation and therefore you will have understood the sequel. What if Miller was? “To absent subscribers” According to the witnesses, the Lord was omnipresent, but not necessarily at the best of times. Lord would have a method of his own: let the teams work without giving a clear direction before changing everything over and over again as ideas come to him. While this is fairly normal in the early stages of making a film, Extensive scene modifications in an advanced stage of production are much rarer, but they are particularly tedious and demoralizing. That would explain that in the course of the production a hundred artists left the ship. According to Sony, this is completely normal.
The hardest thing for artists was not working 11 hours a day and 70 hours a week. The worst part was the work being thrown away and the frustration of spending so many hours on stage only to see it completely altered or thrown away.
Charlie*
The crunch, a normality in animation?
Car actually granted certain Sony executives the right to comment. There’s nothing unusual for Amy Pascal, former president of Sony Pictures Entertainment. “Welcome to the filmmaking process” she even jokes. A point supported by Michelle Grady, Vice President of Sony Pictures Imageworks: “It happens with all films. To be honest, I understand it can be a little frustrating, but we’re trying to explain somehow that this is the classic process.”. But the fact that industry veterans have had their say about Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse probably proves we’re not dealing with one “classic process”.
Most of the team sat around doing nothing for half the year while Phil held back the streaks {…} And then, eventually, there was no more time. The dam gave way, the water flooded everything, and all departments were overworked with overtime. But that hasn’t stopped the influx of change requests.
Stephen*
According to Stephen*, who has worked on many animation projects, the bosses, starting with Lord, are in denial. The man has achieved a string of successes despite a way of working that seems disastrous for his teams. But since it works for him and he’s probably never known anything else, he doesn’t see what the problem is. Just as he seems confident that the continuation of the film Beyond the Spider-Versewill see the light of day next March. But according to Stephen*, if things don’t change, it’s unlikely that anything will happen…
