Credit: Unsplash

The sequel is on track for a 2022 release.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was one of my absolute favorite movies of the past decade, and it’s not even because I’m a massive Spider-Man nerd. Or, well, not just because of that. It was fantastically animated film with some phenomenal performances, a heartfelt story, and some kick-awesome action scenes. Really, any movie that has both Nic Cage and John Mulaney can only be incredible. So now, the question on everyone’s minds is… will the sequel top it?

Sony Pictures Animation announced today that they’ve tapped a new trio of directors to take point on the Into the Spider-Verse sequel. This trio is made up of Kemp Powers, who co-directed Pixar’s Oscar-nominated film Soul, Joaquim Dos Santos, who directed both Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra, and Justin K. Thompson, who worked as the production designer for the first Spider-Verse film.

“The crew behind the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse set such a ridiculously high bar, and we’re humbled to take on the challenge of charting the next chapter in the story of Miles Morales,” the directing team said in a joint statement.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2 just got new directors:

-Kemp Powers (Soul)
-Joaquim Dos Santos (The Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender)
-Justin K. Thompson (prod. design in Spider-Verse)https://t.co/uxwRJOSRdS pic.twitter.com/IijHSPFIhH

— BD (@BrandonDavisBD) April 19, 2021

Alongside the directorial trio is Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Amy Pascal, Avi Arad and Christina Steinberg, who are all returning to produce the project, along with Alonzo Ruvalcaba co-producing. The first film’s director, Peter Ramsey, will be serving as an executive producer.

“We are so lucky to have Joaquim, Justin and Kemp on the Spider-Verse team,” Lord and Miller said in a statement. “We are huge fans of Joaquim’s work — he makes his characters so heartfelt and unique, and he can tell an emotional story with an action sequence the way a musical does through a song. Justin is a maverick filmmaker who relentlessly pursues visual innovation and surprise but always in support of the emotional storytelling. Kemp’s work is incisive and ambitious and funny — with a writer’s wisdom and a director’s heart — he just knows what matters in every scene. All three of them elevate every project they take on, and they are certainly raising our game. We honestly just like them and want to be their friends and we’re hoping working on this movie together for the next few years will totally make that happen.”