Spider-Man: Homecoming Forced Into The Spider-Verse to Reduce Ganke's Role

There is little doubt that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse already featured so many interesting characters but some fans are still a little disappointed that Miles Morales' best friend Ganke Lee only had a brief appearance. So why reduce the role of one of the character's most important allies? Director Peter Ramsey says it has a lot to do with Spider-Man: Homecoming introducing a version of Ganke.

In Homecoming, fans were introduced to Ned Leeds, Peter Parker's best friend. In the comic books, Ned has a different storyline but this was changed for the film, making him a close friend of Peter's who eventually learns about his secret identity. You know, just like Ganke Lee.

The similarities between Ned and Ganke are hard to ignore and that's why Ramsey was forced to change a lot about what happened in Into The Spider-Verse. While speaking to Comic Book Movie, the filmmaker stated that Ganke was part of the original plan for the animated flick.

"The biggest thing that we wanted to do in this movie that we weren't able to do was having Ganke play a larger role. Definitely, because we had a whole person, and I think you can see some of it on one of the blu-rays with the alternate storyboard cut, where the whole first part of the movie Ganke was in it. And they were best friends from the very beginning, so much, it could have been about the two of them discovering Miles's Spider powers together," Ramsey said.

However, that all changed when Ned appeared in Homecoming. "We had to tweak that whole relationship, and, at the end of this movie, you kind of see the origin of their friendship," Ramsey said. "But the original plan was to have them be best friends from the beginning. So we were so happy with what we had, and we had so much fun with those two that it was almost like we don't even need for him to become Spider-Man. This is entertaining, just watching two friends."

It's sad that we only got a glimpse of Ganke in Into The Spider-Verse. Hopefully, there will be more of him in the future.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 2 is scheduled for release on October 7, 2022.

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