The Mitchells vs. The Machines hit Netflix last Friday, and in a recent interview with Inverse, writer and director Mike Rianda revealed that he very nearly managed to sneak in a Spider-Man cameo.
Visually, the movie took a lot of cues from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and looks absolutely phenomenal as a result. It's no great surprise, then, that the wall-crawler swinging into a scene was considered!
"I remember trying to get like a kind of disheveled lumpy Spider-Man in the background of a shot," the filmmaker said before revealing that a tight production schedule forced him to scrap those plans.
In the same interview, Rianda explained that while The Mitchells vs. The Machines used the same animation technology as Into the Spider-Verse, Sony Pictures Imageworks still had to shake things up.
"They took all those tools on Spider-Verse, and they kind of just like, bent them," he said. "It’s really subtle. You don't notice it ever, but hopefully when you just look at the movie as a whole, you're like, this is wild, what's different about this?"
It's a shame we didn't get a Spider-Man Easter Egg in the movie, but if a sequel happens, then it's certainly possible. As for the the web-slinger's animated future, he'll return in the untitled Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel that is currently set to be released in theaters on October 7th, 2022.
In our review of The Mitchells vs. The Machines, we concluded by saying "The Mitchells vs. the Machines hits a few bumps in the road along the way, but overcomes that with astonishing visuals, some great gags, and clever social commentary on how technology can affect family life."