Spider-Gwen (film)

Spider-Gwen is an 2019 American animated adventure action science fiction film based on the Marvel Comics of its same name created by Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez. It was released by Columbia Pictures, produced by Sony Pictures Animation & Movie Land Animation Studios in association with Marvel Entertainment & TSG Entertainment and was co-produced by Arad Productions, Lord Miller Productions, The Kerner Entertainment Company & Pascal Pictures and was directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman. The film title will be release on September 6, 2019 in the United States. A sequel film will be release on June 17, 2022.

Cast

 * Jamie Chung as Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman
 * Alec Baldwin as George Stacy
 * Bex Taylor-Klaus as Mary Jane Watson
 * Genesis Rodriguez as Gloria Grant
 * Robert Downey Jr. as Frank Castle
 * Jason Sudeikis as Bodega Bandit
 * Miranda Cosgrove as Betty Brant
 * Tim Allen as Ben Grimm
 * Various actors as A.I.M. / M.O.D.A.A.K.
 * Jordan Peele as J. Jonah Jameson
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Development
Movie Land Animation Studios had already begun the process of starting development of movies with budgets of around $320 million. The intellectual property for these films was meant to be supplied by Movie Land Animation Studios among others and included Penguinopolis, Smash of Claws, The Animals in the Attic and Stickman 2: Larry's Adventure had been approaching the original crew from the television series to make a high-profile, animated theatrical feature-length film adaptation and had long wanted to partner with Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation to release the film given the network's extraordinary legacy in the world of animation, including some of the most enduring characters on cable television history.

Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman agreed to make a feature film version of the show with the promise it would be the first of a planned trilogy. During development stages of the film, he and his co-director Joaquim Dos Santos and Stephen Heneveld, and co-writer Conrad Vernon, intended to revisit some of the greatest films of the time, with The Emoji Movie, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Animals in the Attic having the core inspirations for the film.

Writing
In March 2016, Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman revealed via Twitter that he had begun writing the screenplay for the film along with Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman.

Pre-production
Pre-production officially began in the United Kingdom by early December 2015. That same month, director Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman stated that the film will be another great love story with a new love interest being cast. The next month, production designer Bill Boes was announced to be designing the film's production designer, as well as Kasia Walicka-Maimone, also making the movie as costume designer.

Visual effects
As with The Star, Sony Pictures Animation will have the animation produced by another studio other than Sony Pictures Imageworks, which handles digital production for most of SPA's films. For this film, the film title will be animated by Movie Land Digital Production Services and will also be animated in a combination of motion capture along with photo-realistic computer animation.

The CGI environment, CGI animation, and visual effects were provided by Movie Land Digital Production Services and was made using Autodesk Maya, who had made 2,300 shots for The JH Movie Collection Movie 2: The Second Part.

Design
The crew used the same processes from the original television series in the making of the film, most notably the 'skroutlines', which was a seamless blend of a more traditional screenplay with a more simple outline which resembled strong short stories and gave the storyboard artists such as Maurice Fontenot, Abigail Nesbitt and Guy Moore all the creative and aesthetic freedom neccessary. Warburton and Willems themselves provided the film's animatics.

It took around a year for two animators to create 10 seconds of footage that reflected the producers's vision; the animation work developed from there. During initial development, the directors worked with a single animator to establish the film's look. This number eventually grew to 60 animators during production. It became clear that this would not be enough to complete the film on time, so the crew was expanded further. The number had reached 142 animators by February 2019 and at one point to 177 animators, the largest animation crew that Movie Land Digital Production Services had ever used for a film. Animation work was completed in April 28, 2019.

The CGI and hand-drawn animation for the film was combined with "line work and painting and dots and all sorts of comic book techniques" to make it look like it was created by hand, which was described as "a living painting". This was achieved by artists taking rendered frames from the CGI animators and working on top of them in 2D, with the goal of making every frame of the film "look like a comic panel". Lord described this style of animation as "totally revolutionary", and explained that the design combines the in-house style of Sony Pictures Animation with the "flavor" of digital artists such as Christopher Arambulo Cosgrove and Chris Lawrence.

The directors all felt that the film would be one of the few that audiences actually "need" to watch in 3D due to the immersive nature of the animated world created, and the way that the hand-drawn animation elements created specifically for the film create a unique experience; Persichetti described this experience as a combination of the effects of an old-fashioned hand-drawn multiplane camera and a modern virtual reality environment.

Soundtrack
Henry Jackman, James Newton Howard, Lorne Balfe and Daniel Pemberton composed the score for the film. The soundtrack album will be digitally release for purchase by Island Records on August 27, 2019.

Technology
PIX System provided the production crew with secure access to production content and project management throughout the suite of devices used.

Release
The movie title will be release on September 6, 2019 in the United States and Canada in IMAX, ScreenX, 4DX, RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema and 2D theaters by Sony Pictures Releasing, with limited IMAX international showings. Theatrically, the film was accompanied by The Animals in the Attic short film, Earl's Back to School, a short film directed by Jenny Harder.

Marketing
The studio spent around $40 million on promotions and advertisements for the film.

Trailers

 * The teaser trailer was released and shown on December 21, 2018 before Aquaman.
 * The film's full trailer was released and shown on March 27, 2019 before Dumbo, Missing Link and Breakthrough
 * The theatrical final trailer was released and shown on June 21, 2019 before Toy Story 4 in theaters, but was never released online until August 12, 2019.

Sequel
In September 2019, Movie Land Animation Studios had begun working on a sequel to the film. The sequel, titled Spider-Gwen 2 will be release on June 17, 2022. Avi Arad, Amy Pascal, Jordan Kerner, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Mary Ellen Bauder Andrews & Christina Steinberg will return as a producer and Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman will return as a director and Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman will return as writers.