Read the deleted “Australian Spider-Man” excerpt from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse!

January 21, 2019 Jeff Goldsmith

Backstory Magazine Issue 35 features a fantastic interview with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-writers Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman – which includes a ditched concept Rothman describes as “Australian Spider-Man.”

You can read an excerpt from the Issue 35’s interview below plus the actual script pages as well!

Want more? You also hear a one hour and twenty minute interview with Rodney from a podcast with Backstory’s publisher by tuning in here.

From Issue 35 of Backstory Magazine’s Spider-Verse article by David Somerset:

One variant of Spider-Man who didn’t—pun alert—stick around stemmed from a fun idea Rothman had late in the game. And by late in the game, we mean just six months before the movie was to be delivered. “I invented a character I called Australian Spider-Man, who was also part of the group of Spiders that appear halfway through. He told everyone he’d been there for a day already because he was 24 hours ahead, and then he glitched to death very gruesomely in front of the others. They all then look at each other and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, we only have 24 hours to live!’ I nearly got fired, because me adding that character at that moment of production showed a profound lack of understanding of the process of animation production and where we were in that moment, so that particular idea didn’t even make it to storyboards. People just met the next day and looked at me and were like, Go eff yourself.”

You can read the actual script pages below! Use the up/down buttons in the bottom left corner of the PDF to navigate from page to page.

To read the complete article in Issue 35 of Backstory, click HERE to subscribe or buy it as a single issue.

For more info about all the other articles in issue 35, view the Table of Contents.

Rodney Rothman - Australian Spider-Man for Backstory Magazine