Boo, hiss, Across The Spider-Verse just got delayed to 2023

We must be out of practice post-2021; it’s been a minute since seeing a movie get delayed has really knocked the wind out of our sails. But, then, most movies aren’t Across The Spider-Verse, Sony’s sequel to 2018's triumphant Spider-Man film Into The Spider-Verse, a.k.a., easily the best “Spider-People team up to save the multiverse” movie of the last several years.

The sequel—which will see Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld’s spider-powered Miles and Gwen apparently face off against Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099—was originally set to come out October 2022, a scant six months away. But, wouldn’t you know it: Sony has executed one of those big schedule shifts that we thought we were done with now that theaters have largely re-opened, and now Spider-Verse won’t be arriving until June 2, 2023. More than a year away! The indignity!

Among other things, that puts Across The Spider-Verse (no longer identified as Part One, although Part Two is still on the books for March 2024) weirdly close to a different Sony/Spidey movie: The Madame Web movie starring Dakota Johnson, which is now slated for July 7, 2023. That film is the latest installment in what Sony is apparently calling, presumably with a straight face, the “Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters,” which a) really rolls off the tongue, and b) also includes the Venom movies, and the recent Jared Leto, Vampire Man, Is Gonna Get Ya.

Outside of superhero stuff, Variety notes that Sony also used the calendar shift to announce a third entry in Denzel Washington’s “Who wants to watch Denzel murder some morons” series, The Equalizer. (Sept. 1, 2023) And if you’re worried about what to watch on October 7 of this year, now that Miles and pals won’t be there to blow your mind with a winning combination of gorgeous animation and genuine heart, fear not: The Shawn Mendes-fronted live-action/CGI-hybrid adaptation of classic kids’ book Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile will now be filling that space instead. Hooray.