Across Spider-Verse Creators on Pavitr Prabhakar

When Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s Pavitr Prabhakar swings through Mumbattan—the home of Spider-Man in Earth 50101—he shows off a happy-go-lucky, confident attitude that audiences have been praising. Surprisingly, though, that wasn’t in the film’s first draft.

When the animated sequel’s three directors (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson) and two screenwriters (Christopher Miller and Phil Lord) studied Pavitr’s sequence as it was originally crafted, they knew something had to change. Dos Santos said to Variety, “It was like, ‘Why is this just a wet blanket right now?’ It gets really crazy here—but we’re not connected to the story.’” They soon got their answer: it wasn’t the story, it was the portrayal of the character. Some of Sony’s Indian crewmembers told the leadership team that Pavitr didn’t feel “authentic,” according to Powers. The animators told the directors, “He doesn’t feel aspirational.”

So the team took another look at the sequence and broke the scene apart. Actor Karan Soni—Pavitr himself—even pitched in to figure out what was wrong and helped come up with a better, more rounded character for Pavitr. The rewritten script turned Pavitr into a foil for Miles Morales, and in the end, the work that the entire team did on Pavitr was indicative of the collaboration and trust that crossed the film’s decision-making hierarchies.

“You have to be open in this process to criticism and to good ideas from wherever they come,” said Powers. “And that really speaks to the amount of problem solving that we had to go through to make sure that that character who’s supposed to represent a very specific part of the world felt authentic to people from that part of the world.”

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is in theaters now.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

When Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s Pavitr Prabhakar swings through Mumbattan—the home of Spider-Man in Earth 50101—he shows off a happy-go-lucky, confident attitude that audiences have been praising. Surprisingly, though, that wasn’t in the film’s first draft.

When the animated sequel’s three directors (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson) and two screenwriters (Christopher Miller and Phil Lord) studied Pavitr’s sequence as it was originally crafted, they knew something had to change. Dos Santos said to Variety, “It was like, ‘Why is this just a wet blanket right now?’ It gets really crazy here—but we’re not connected to the story.’” They soon got their answer: it wasn’t the story, it was the portrayal of the character. Some of Sony’s Indian crewmembers told the leadership team that Pavitr didn’t feel “authentic,” according to Powers. The animators told the directors, “He doesn’t feel aspirational.”

So the team took another look at the sequence and broke the scene apart. Actor Karan Soni—Pavitr himself—even pitched in to figure out what was wrong and helped come up with a better, more rounded character for Pavitr. The rewritten script turned Pavitr into a foil for Miles Morales, and in the end, the work that the entire team did on Pavitr was indicative of the collaboration and trust that crossed the film’s decision-making hierarchies.

“You have to be open in this process to criticism and to good ideas from wherever they come,” said Powers. “And that really speaks to the amount of problem solving that we had to go through to make sure that that character who’s supposed to represent a very specific part of the world felt authentic to people from that part of the world.”

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is in theaters now.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.