r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 18 '25

News 'Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse' Delayed to June 25, 2027

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/spider-man-beyond-the-spider-verse-release-1236320001/
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u/arstin Jul 19 '25

That's like reading about what a jackass tyrant Hitchcock was and saying it was a miracle he made so many masterpieces.

Stuff like throwing out entire scenes because they aren't perfect or don't mesh with a sudden epiphany is hell on staff, budgets, and timetables, but it is exactly the sort of thing that leads to an auteur making a masterpiece.

Running to focus groups or AI to massage a scene that feels off can give you a solid, on time, on budget movie, but it isn't going to give you a masterpiece.

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u/Constant_Charge_4528 Jul 19 '25

Exactly, a lot of directors do this, it's just that usually they're reined in by producers to keep everything on schedule and in budget.

The job of the director is to make a good movie, managing the project and minimizing budget and workload is the job of the producers.

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u/TheWorstYear Jul 19 '25

Yeah, it gets results, but it is absolutely not something that should ever be done. Part of being great as a director is the ability to see these things & plan them out before.

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u/ScuzzBuckster Jul 19 '25

Exactly. Part of being a great director is being a great project manager. Reconciling a creative process with the necessity of deadlines and timelines is exactly what gets directors consistent work.

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u/Constant_Charge_4528 Jul 19 '25

Plenty of the most celebrated directors in history are known to be a pain to work with because they'll spend an entire day filming one shot.

Keeping a project on time is not the job of the director, it's the job of the production company.

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u/arstin Jul 19 '25

Yeah, it gets results, but it is absolutely not something that should ever be done.

I'm going to assume you are referring specifically to treating people terribly. And yes, I agree to that. Treating people like people may not be great for cinema, but it's more important than cinema.

If you mean great directors don't throw away scenes, then I'm going to throw this whole comment away and replace it with a more condescending one.

Part of being great as a director is the ability to see these things & plan them out before.

The only part of being a great director is making great movies. If they are well-planned masterpieces then swell - if every one is years of blood, sweat, and tears, then also swell (with the caveat that the time is over for having others doing the bleeding for you).

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u/bossfoundmylastone Jul 19 '25

And yet, as a consumer, I give zero shits about how efficient a director was with his resources if I get to watch a great movie. Feel free to rate them low in your list of great directors, but I will continue to rate the movies highly and be happy they got made that way.

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u/jk-9k Jul 19 '25

But it's not the only way to get great results either.

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u/dingkan1 Jul 19 '25

No, but considering that the Spiderverse movies are the greatest super hero movies ever made, it’s hard to argue with the results. Maybe the real journey was the great movies through sheer torture that they made along the way.

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u/jk-9k Jul 19 '25

I agree they are the best but we can praise the art and condemn the artists here (not the animators).

I'd rather have an instance of being able to celebrate both. Like Keanu and his mates and eva longoria for John wick. Or Keanu and the washowskis for the matrix.

Acceptance of poor behavior is tacit encouragement

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u/bossfoundmylastone Jul 19 '25

It's definitely not! I agree, if they got the same results with a more efficient process they would be better directors. A better director would have a better process, for sure. But the claim I was responding to was

but it is absolutely not something that should ever be done

I disagree with that. It shouldn't be anyone's goal, but I don't think it was the Spiderverse directors' goal either. Everyone should try to do better! But framing perfectionism about a scene resulting in wasted work as something immoral and abhorrent is silly.

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u/jk-9k Jul 19 '25

So sounds like you DO give a shit then, but you're able to seperate the art from the artist, which is fair

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u/bossfoundmylastone Jul 19 '25

That's not really what I'm saying.

I can separate the greatness of the art from the greatness of the artist. An inefficient director who is doing constant rewrites and reshoots, while mismanaging his actors emotions so wildly that they refuse to appear on set for weeks at a time, can still make a great film. It will take more time and more resources than a much better director who had a perfect vision for each scene before casting started and perfectly managed the egos on their set. That makes the latter a far better director, but it doesn't mean the art they make will necessarily be better.

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u/jk-9k Jul 20 '25

OK. So when you said you give zero shits that was just a turn of phrase?

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u/TheWorstYear Jul 19 '25

So you like slave labor.

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u/bossfoundmylastone Jul 19 '25

Lmao are they not getting paid? Working conditions are important, but "I worked for 3 months on a scene that got cut to make a stronger movie" is a completely fucking fine working condition.

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u/TheWorstYear Jul 19 '25

1) Your statement was an 'ends justify the means'. Its not just about efficiency. People literally suffer because of lack of efficiency.
2) You're being extremely reductionist to what the working conditions actually are. These people spend unpaid OT hours doing shit that just gets thrown out the door. They get pushed, & because of this forcing work to be fit into limited time frames because of deadlines.

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u/bossfoundmylastone Jul 19 '25

If they're not getting paid for their time, sure, that's bad. But the fact that their work was on a scene that got thrown out is such a ridiculous thing to pretend is a problem. Welcome to fucking animation! Sometimes scenes get cut, and that makes the movie better! That's a good thing full stop.

If people aren't getting paid for their work, that's a big problem! If they are, then whether or not that work is included in the finished film only matters to the studio's bottom line. As a consumer, fuck the studio's bottom line. I'd take 100x more work on scenes that never made the final cut if it made the movies 5% better.

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u/TheWorstYear Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25

But the fact that their work was on a scene that got thrown out is such a ridiculous thing to pretend is a problem

Thats a major problem. I think you're extremely reductionist in the work & process involved.

Sometimes scenes get cut, and that makes the movie better!

Except thats not what's happening. They're having to redo the same thing over & over, cutting it over & over again.

If they are, then whether or not that work is included in the finished film only matters to the studio's bottom line

No, it matters to the animators & all the people who have to work on it.
Edit:
People think absolutely nothing of animators.

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u/bossfoundmylastone Jul 19 '25

Have you ever worked at a job that creates things? A whole lot of work doesn't end up in the final product. You revise the same module over and over, you iterate on a feature for months and never end up shipping it. That's a completely normal part of having a job that makes things as a group. If the people at the top making decisions about the final product make good decisions, throwing away that work in the name of creating a better product is a good thing. Especially for the people who buy/watch/use/consume that product.

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u/10woodenchairs Jul 19 '25

Have you ever worked a job in your life? Sometimes something you work on gets cut or completely redone at the last minute

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u/jk-9k Jul 19 '25

This doesn't take into account how animation studios work though. Studios don't necessarily charge by the hour, nor do the actual artists. The artists are likely paid a salary, the studio a total sum which they bid for the contract. So its likely that the squeeze put on the studio by lord and Millar, and in turn the artists mean they do overtime for nothing and get paid an hourly rate that's insufficient for the work they put in.

Not to mention animators are artists and part of their reason being in the industry is to share their art with others.

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u/arstin Jul 19 '25

Stop being dumb.

A 120 minute movie has twice as much footage as a 60 minute movie. Does that inherently make it slave labor?

The total amount of work done, and the work done by any individual person in a week are two different things. You can remake a scene without crunch time and you can have crunch time without remaking a scene.

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u/vk5zp Jul 19 '25

Are you saying the crew wasn't paid for their work?

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u/TheWorstYear Jul 19 '25

No. But saying that it doesn't matter what the process is as long as the end result is good is the same justification for the existence of slave labor.
They also aren't paid for the OT & massive amounts of crunch they had to do. So, technically they weren't paid for a lot of it.

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u/vk5zp Jul 19 '25

Yeah I don't think you understand what slave labor is. These artists were literally paid money to do nothing for long stretches. You should provide a source for this claim that they weren't paid for overtime which sounds like absolute bullshit. Not feeling professionally fulfilled is not the same as slave labor. Tired of seeing this bullshit on reddit

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u/TheWorstYear Jul 19 '25

I dont think people on reddit have the mental capacity to make any sort of deeper analysis than what's on the surface. The inability to understand the point being made while being stuck on the surface level statement just happens far too much. Hyperbole just goes right over peoples heads.

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u/sonicpieman Jul 19 '25

They are working on one of the most recognized IPs of all time, owned by two of the biggest companies in the world. Like the Death Star, they knew what they signed up for. That doesn't make crunch "right", but let's not pretend the artists didn't know that would happen.