Donald Glover finally made his live-action debut as Prowler in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. However, according to the film’s directors, the cameo was only added at the 11th hour.
Fans lost their minds when Donald Glover made a cameo as Prowler in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, bringing to a close over a decade of fan-casting and speculation. Yet, the appearance wasn’t always meant to be. According to directors Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers, and Joaquim Dos Santos, Glover only agreed to appear in the film a few weeks before its release.
“There were several things in those previews that we hadn’t really sorted out yet, like you guys probably remember the Donald Glover cameo – he hadn’t agreed to do it yet,” Powers told Collider in a recent interview. “So in the preview, we had, like, a South Park-style cardboard cutout of Donald Glover. He was like, ‘Hi, I’m Donald Glover,’ and he was just like a flappy head, and everyone was cracking up.”
“I’m like, ‘Is anyone gonna call Donald Glover and see if he’s gonna do this cameo?’ We recorded him just a few weeks before the film came out, so it was kind of crazy because it was like, the film still wasn’t quite all there, but it was there. That was a story we knew we were trying to tell, so I started feeling pretty good about it then.”
Donald Glover’s cameo wasn’t the only last-minute addition to the film. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was criticized for crunching animators due to last-minute changes to the script. It’s a shame such an amazing movie has had its legacy tainted by worker exploitation, something that sadly seems to be a common thing in Hollywood.
The team behind Across The Spider-Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson from a screenplay written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham, Across The Spider-Verse also features the voice talents of Jake Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Vélez, Jason Schwartzman, Rachel Dratch, Shea Whigham and Jorma Taccone. Avi Arad, Amy Pascal, and Christina Steinberg are producing the upcoming movie alongside Lord and Miller, who also worked on its predecessor.
The Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse synopsis reads as follows:
“Miles Morales returns for the next chapter of the Oscar-winning Spider-Verse saga… After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.”
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