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‘Beyond The Spider-Verse’ Director Bob Persichetti On Fan Expectations And “Never Saying No To An Idea”

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Bob Persichetti, a director of Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, concedes that the audience bar is rising ahead of the third outing in the Oscar-decorated blockbuster franchise.

“Expectations are kind of limitless and we have to try to meet them,” he told Sony Pictures Animation President Kristine Belson with a grin during a panel discussion at the Crunchyroll Anime Future Forum.

Even though the chat took place at the Javits Center, where New York Comic Con will be held over the next few days, the point of the session was not plot teases or fan service. (Persichetti did show attendees the same work-in-progress footage from the film that screened at Cinema Con in April but Sony is holding back for now on an official teaser for the June 2027 release.)

The discussion instead focused on process and also, in keeping with the theme across other Crunchyroll sessions, about creating an animated work that draws on a multitude of influences but retains its originality.

Belson asked Persichetti, who directs the films with Justin K. Thompson, about how things have changed since the first installment in 2018.

“There were all these questions of, like, ‘Wait, who is it really for?!’” he recalled. “Because it’s not an outright comedy. There’s going to be action in it and Spider-Man guys – what are you doing?! And I think it was at that moment when we were in the room together and we screened it. It was made very clear to us that, ‘Oh, we have been underestimating the general audience for a long time in terms of what the sophistication of an animated film can be.’”

The first film wound up winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature en route to a global box office haul of $395 million. The follow-up, Across the Spider-Verse, took in $690.5 million in 2023 and was nominated for Best Animated Feature, losing out to The Boy and the Heron.

Since the franchise left its unique mark, Persichetti said, “The animation industry is going, ‘Oh, you can make choices that seem unorthodox and still make money and still succeed.’”

In the sequel, he said, “we piled on like five different looks and wondered if it was working and people said, ‘not only is it working, but we want more,’” the director said. “What we learned is that the audience is fine with the image changing every shot. … That’s ultimately how we were able to do so many things in one movie. The narrative throughline was creating this incredible visual extravagance.”

Technology has evolved dramatically since a decade ago when the franchise began. The filmmakers and crew are “seeing more creative choices” at a preliminary stage of the process, Persichetti said. “We’re able to think about a movie, holistically, creatively, much earlier.”

The collaborative way of making the film revolves around keeping an open mind, with writer/producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in the mix and material taken from real-life experiences. For all of its visual energy, Persichetti said, the original film “was really a movie, in my eyes, that was about Miles and his family. It was also sort of a love letter to New York. It’s also a love letter to hip-hop music and, ultimately, a love letter to Spider-Man.”

The filmmakers have “never said no to an idea,” the director continued. “If it’s an idea we’re doing in the movie, it will be stress-tested repeatedly, and then maybe the real idea ends up being not that thing but pieces of the stuff, pieces of that idea might fall into place on something else.”

The breakthrough of the first film earned the directors considerable leeway, Perischetti said. “We are very fortunate because we’re now on our third movie. The first two movies were successful, and the studio trusts us to make these movies. So we get to explore, probably way more than others do. But I will say, even on that first movie, we were exploring things that nobody believed in, and at first we weren’t even sure worked.”

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Disneyland & WDW Annual Ticket Price Bump Is The Smallest In Recent Memory

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Each year October brings Halloween, the turning of the leaves, the World Series and changing ticket prices at Disney‘s U.S. parks.

For 2026-2027, however, many ticket tiers remain unchanged, while those that are rising are seeing some of the smallest bumps in recent memory. There are good reasons for this.

When Comcast reported earnings in July, it noted softer attendance at its domestic parks, despite the opening of Epic Universe in Orlando.

At Disney, global guests grew 4% and attendance at domestic parks rose 3%. Disney noted continued, but moderating, headwinds from international attendance at domestic parks. The segment’s average per capita ticket revenue still rose 5%. Forward bookings remained robust. WDW specifically saw healthy core attendance increases from domestic tourists and annual passholders.

Still, the recently announced price points indicate Disney is aware that consumers are hurting, with gas prices making it a struggle to even get to the parks.

Disneyland‘s least expensive single-day (Tier 0) ticket is still $104. That rate has remained unchanged since 2019. In line with last year, there are eight dates to get tickets at that price — all in November. See calendars below.

Another indication Disney is aware of a price pinch: Lowest-cost dates for each month are, this year, highlighted in green.

The peak 1-day (Tier 6) ticket for holiday dates in Nov.-Dec. 2026 remains $224. That price currently applies to Thanksgiving week, the days around Christmas and those leading up to New Year’s Eve. See below.

The second-highest price point, Tier 5, also remains unchanged at $199. Ditto multiday tickets, parking and annual passes. Each of the intervening tiers has only been raised $5.

The tiers and attendant cost increases (if any) break down as follows:

Tier 0 – Was $104, still $104

Tier 1 – Was $129, now $134

Tier 2 – Was $149, now $154

Tier 3 – Was $169, now $174

Tier 4 – Was $184, now $189

Tier 5 – Was $199, still $199

Tier 6 – Was $224, still $224

“Our goal is to put guests at the center of our decision making, and that starts by listening to them,” Thomas Mazloum, chairman of Disney Experiences, said of this year’s rates. “That matters more now when families are watching every dollar, and we see it in the choices they make every day — in how they plan, in how far ahead.”

Mazloum added, “We think about pricing market by market, rather than with one broad brush,” as Disneyland guests tend to be more local and those to Walt Disney World regularly travel longer distances.

Apropos of that, the company is still considering targeted offers in market, like last summer’s “Evening Ticket” at Disneyland for local residents. Those were only $59.

Over in Orlando, ticket prices are generally higher, reflecting the bigger trip Walt Disney World Resort often is for guests coming from farther away. The lowest priced offering to the Magic Kingdom remains unchanged at $119 for a single day, single park ticket, though there are none on the calendar before the end of the year. The highest-priced, Tier 6, entry is also unchanged at $209. Multiday ticket prices are not increasing.

Annual Passes at Walt Disney World are increasing by $10-$120, depending on the level. Parking prices and Lightning Lane Multi Pass pricing are not changing.

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Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón On Cinema’s Future; Love Of Korean Films

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Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón shared their thoughts on the future of the theatrical experience, teased a few details of upcoming projects and discussed Korean cinema during their first visit to Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) today.

BIFF is hosting both a special IMAX screening of Gravity, the Oscar-winning movie that the father and son filmmakers co-wrote, and the Asian premiere of Jonas Cuarón’s most recent film, Campeon Gabacho, the story of a Mexican immigrant in New York, which premiered at this year’s SXSW.

“I believe that the theatrical experience will keep on existing, and I hope so because I love the theatrical experience, but I think it’s going to coexist with more forms,” said Alfonso Cuarón, a four-time Oscar winner for Gravity and Roma.

“And I’m very pleased about that, and I’m also very afraid,” he continued. “But I want to learn from the new generation about how they take this new world and turn it into into art, and that’s at the end of the day what I’m putting my focus on.”

Cuarón said he’s already learned from his son, despite initially trying to dissuade him from a career in cinema: “When he was growing up, I consciously pushed him away from studying or getting involved in film. We went to the movies together and he shared my love of cinema, but I told him I can’t encourage you to study film.”

After he took that path anyway, Cuarón said: “it was very refreshing to see that he was developing a language so different from mine. Selfishly, it was a language I could learn from.

“From his first film, that was all done with still photography, and then his second film Desierto, when I read that script, I said I wanted to write something like that. So I feel in many ways, he has pushed me in my own language to explore further. He has a deep belief in audiences and a deep belief in the power of of film.”

Continuing the theme of appealing to audiences, Jonás Cuarón shared his love of genre cinema and the fact that he’s currently working on a script for a horror movie: “I like the way genre connects with an audience, like with the audience here yesterday for Gravity, you could see they were really stressed out for Dr. Ryan Stone. And horror is a really great genre in that sense of connecting with the audience. It’s similar to comedy; that when you see a horror you really get a communal reaction.”

Both father and son expressed an appreciation for Korean cinema. Jonás Cuarón said: “Something in Korean cinema that really connects with me, and that I’ve always tried to do in my films, is bringing in social semantics, but under the guise of genre and particularly also with humour.

“A lot of movies that I really respect from The Host and Parasite, to recent Korean films like Hope and No Other Choice, they all share what I love about cinema, which is that they talk about social issues but connect with the audience through genre, and a sense of humor that I really connect with.”

Speaking with Korean director Yeon Sang-ho (Colony, Paradise Lost) later today in a masterclass, Alfonso Cuarón noted how failure can be an important component in success: “I have way more projects fall apart than the projects I made; and perhaps they could be considered as failures, but thanks to those failures, I managed to do some other films that were well received in one way or the the other.”

Busan International Film Festival is taking place October 6-15 at Busan Cinema Center and multiple venues across the city. The festival’s industry platform, Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM), kicks off on Saturday, October 10 and runs until Tuesday, October 13.

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Doha Film Festival Unveils 2026 International Feature Competition

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Qatar’s Doha Film Festival (DFF) has unveiled the International Feature Film Competition lineup for its second edition which is due to take place this November.

The fifteen titles include Hosam Abu Dan’s Gaza-shot drama Thirteen in Gaza, a coming-of-age drama about a motherless thirteen-year-old living with her father in a Gaza displacement camp without privacy or protection. It won the NETPAC Award in Toronto in September.

It is among four Palestinian films in competition alongside Muayad Alayan’s Venice–selected Conversation with the Sea about a Palestinian man caught in the crosshairs of Israeli bureaucracy over a social security debt for his son who drowned in the Red Sea some two decades previously.

They also include Rabab Khamis’ documentary Sama, which will world premiere in the festival. It revolves around a ten-year-old girl who collects plastic and cardboard in Deir al-Balah in Gaza to sell as fuel and help sustain her family.

Mohanad Yaqubi’s Revolutionaries Never Die, taking its cue from 113 reels of films preserved by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, will also compete. It won the Special Jury Prize in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno over the summer.

They are among 11 films in the main competition supported by the Doha Film Institute (DFI), which oversees the festival.

The unveiling of the selection is a sign that the DFI is confident the event will go ahead in spite of regional instability caused by the U.S.-Iran-Israel war.

Qatar is a key mediator in indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran, at the same time as negotiating directly with the latter for a regional non-aggression security framework.

Further titles from the Arab world include Concrete Land by Asmahan Bkerat, following an Afro-Palestinian Bedouin family on the outskirts of Amman as luxury villas close in around them. Filmed over eight years, the filmmaker’s debut feature premiered in the Semaine de la Critique at Locarno.

Moroccan director Tala Hadid will present Bardi, about the centuries-old equestrian tradition of Tbourida, which premiered in the Currents section at the New York Film Festival.

As previously announced Yemeni Scottish director Sara Ishaq’s The Station, set against the backdrop of a women-only petrol station in war-torn Yemen, both opens the festival and competes.

Out of sub-Saharan Africa, Cameroonian director Auguste Bernard Kouemo competes with House of the Wind, which debuted in the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti sidebar winning its Special Jury Prize and the Lion of the Future for a Debut Film.

Also out of the region, is My Semba by Hugo Salvaterra. It follows three orphaned siblings in Luanda who fight for dignity through faith, fury and verse. The film won the Feature Film Competition Award at the International Film Festival Innsbruck.

Asia is represented by Thai director Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples to Heaven, about a family which visits nine temples in a single day in the hope of keeping their grandmother alive. The film debuted in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. It went on to win Best Director and Best Actor in the Asian New Talent Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival and is Thailand’s submission for the 99th Academy Awards.

Also out of Asia are Zou Jing Cannes Critics’ Week Fipresci-winner A Girl Unknown, about a girl abandoned at birth who passes between three families, and Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana about teenage tee-girl at a Manila country club who begins to uncover the violence beneath its manicured lawns.

The latter film won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at Sundance and is Philippines submission for the 99th Academy Awards.

Further contenders include Chilean director Manuela Martelli’s The Meltdown, which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard and is Chile’s 99th Academy Awards entry, and Alessandra Sanguinetti’s The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, following two cousins on the Argentine Pampas through the photographer’s lens over 25 years. It won the Golden Leopard in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno.

Rounding out the selection is Tin Castle by Alexander Murphy follows an Irish traveller family, two parents and ten children, threatened with eviction as they fight to preserve their way of life in an old caravan.

“This year’s features competition reflects great ambition. The 15 films from across the world are united by the courage, imagination and urgency of their filmmakers. Each has travelled a remarkable journey, and it is deeply meaningful that Doha is a part of that journey, ensuring that these powerful works are seen, shared and remembered,” said Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, CEO of Doha Film Institute and Director of DFF.

The competition will feature a jury of five industry experts who select winners in Best Narrative (with prize money of US$75,000), Best Documentary (US$50,000), Best Artistic Achievement for feature narrative or documentary (US$45,000), and Best Performance (US$15,000) categories. A certificate of Special Mention will also be presented to a feature narrative or documentary.

The festival expands on the DFI’s long-running family-focused festival of Ajyal which ran for more than a decade during the same period.

Alongside the DFI, key partners on Doha Film Festival include Katara, Media City Qatar, Film Committee and Visit Qatar.

The festival will unfold from November 19 to 27.

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