'Spider-Verse': New Trailer Has Peni Parker, Spider-Ham, Movie Easter Eggs

There is so much going on in the new trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that it’s easy to miss something as big as old movies becoming canonical. But that’s probably happening, as visual cues to the Sam Raimi trilogy and the two Marc Webb films can be found if you know where to look.

On Tuesday, Sony released a new trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the upcoming animated feature hitting theaters on December 14. In the film, Peter Parker (Jake Johnson) mentors Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), and the two Spider-Men who team up with other Spider-Heroes from across the multiverse, including Peter Porker, the Spider-Ham. Yes, he is real, and he’s voiced by John Mulaney.

The story is loosely based on several major recent Spider-Man stories, mostly Brian Michael Bendis’ Spider-Men from 2012 and Spider-Verse from Dan Slott, which hit in 2014.

But putting aside the shock of an official Spider-Man movie introducing Spider-Ham to a mass populace, Spider-Verse is slyly turning old Spider-Man movies into canon. Namely, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) are referenced in tiny Easter eggs.

At the start of the trailer, Peter Parker gives a quick summary of himself, acknowledging that he’s a mighty familiar face in pop culture. (Even his popsicles get a shout out.) But for audiences who haven’t read the comics, he’s introducing Miles Morales, introduced in 2011 in Ultimate Spider-Man.

But Peter’s summary of himself has all the big Easter eggs to older movies. First, of course, there’s the iconic upside-down kiss between Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in the first Spider-Man, which won the prestigious Best Kiss trophy at the MTV Movie Awards in 2003.

There’s the big train sequence from Spider-Man 2.

And in a comic book-style multi-panel splash frame, there’s hints at things like the Lizard from 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2. Up top, there’s also a shot of Spidey webbing up a bus from up high, which is a mildly different riff on the big Queensboro Bridge sequence from the first film.

Are all the old Spidey movies canon now? They probably always were! The fun thing with the multiverse is that no version of Spidey is the “real” one. All these movies exist in some form or another, even if they’re not receiving sequels and spin-offs like one would expect in modern filmmaking.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on December 14.