Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse animators complain about difficult working conditions

The quality of Marvel movies has declined recently, and along with this, the special effects staff who work with Marvel are dissatisfied. As early as last year, a large number of special effects staff complained about unequal pay and being exploited. The recent Spider-Man animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was exposed by foreign media Vulture as having similar problems.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse may have set a new benchmark for animated films, but it came at a price

It is reported that the four animators who left Spider-Man: Across the Universe accused the working conditions of the project of being "extremely difficult", and that in addition to working more than 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, they had to make repeated revisions, which lasted for more than a year. They also said that "unsustainable working conditions" caused about 100 art staff to leave before the film was completed.

The artists attributed the challenges in the film's production to Phil Lord's management style, especially in the early planning stages, where Phil Lord seemed unable to conceptualize 3D animation and instead loved to edit fully rendered work. During the final rendering stage, the artists were forced to go back to the drawing board and modify the work as many as five times.

“As a producer, Phil was above all the directors, and they were obviously directing, but if Phil’s notes contradicted their notes, his notes took precedence. They had to do what Phil said. So, there were changes and cuts all the time. Nothing was final or approved for Phil. Nothing was really set in stone. Nothing was done. Everything was constantly moving under our feet because they wanted to make it the best it could be.”

However, Sony executives disputed these claims about Phil Lord's management style. Sony executive Amy Pascal acknowledged that major changes were made to the film's narrative and visual aspects, but she said that when more than a thousand artists and technicians were involved in the film's production, the departure of about 100 artists was not surprising.

Due to repeated revisions, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was originally scheduled to be released in theaters in April 2022, but was first postponed to October 2022 and then postponed to June 2023.