There are many versions of Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse…because of the CNC!

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the producers of the animated saga, react to video montages showing that certain details of the second film differ according to the country.

Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse is one of the successes of this summer at the cinema. With $687 million in revenue, this sequel new generationdirected by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson, won over fans of animated films with its innovative ideas and multiple visual styles.

The project also surprised the most attentive Internet users, who noticed that some details sometimes differed. Tiny elements, but which prompted some eagle-eyed people to post video comparisons on social networks. By being mistaken however on their origin: they thought that it was about two different assemblies intended for the American public, but these changes are in fact related to the diffusions in the United States and in Europe.

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If you had the impression of seeing two different versions of the same sequence ofAcross the Spider-Verse, so it was not an illusion. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who are producing the film, confirm to The Wrap that there were indeed two edits of the film shown in cinemas. And it is because of its French distribution that these differences exist!

“You’re going to be a little disappointed by this explanation, you’ll see, begins Miller. All this happened when we submitted the international version of the film to the different markets to do the translations and subtitles. There is a censorship committee in France who saw the film (the CNC, National Cinema Center, editor’s note) who decides what the upstream prohibitions will be, then what ‘rating’ is used throughout Europe. We had to give them a version of the film almost two months before it hit theaters.”

His accomplice continues: “Once submitted, we had no right to modify this version. But others continued to be developed. So when people compare the same scene, they are most often based on a pirated version, which they have found online…and this one matches that international edit. It’s a version of the movie that people have seen without going to the cinema, and that they know well after multiple viewings.”

“In the last weeks before the release, Sony Pictures ImageWorks reworked some shots, continues Miller. They made some mini edits while we were working on the sound editing. So during those few weeks, there was the international version that was done, and the one that had a few touch-ups until the last moment before being released in the United States.”

“Here’s the story, it’s mostly audio additions plus a handful of slick shots, really tweaks we’ve done here and there, concludes Lord. But we can imagine that these differences will be visible in a DVD/blu-ray edition, when the film is legally visible at home.”

The duo also admits having asked Andy Sandberg to re-record a line of dialogue following a tragedy in the New York subway, because the scene was not “not amusing at all in this context.”

This scene from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse took four years to complete

Contrary to what was supposed by part of the American public during the summer, there were therefore not several versions ofAcross the Spider-Verse released in US theaters. “No, it didn’t happen like that, laughs Miller. We said to ourselves: there’s this international version that’s a bit different from our home edit, so maybe we’ll release it as ‘posterity version’. It’s a multiverse after all, we’re good!“. “We’re not as smart as some viewers thought”then replies Lord laughing.

Here is the trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Versewhich will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in France in early October:

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