Why Spider-Verse Succeeds and Fast X Fails: The Cliffhanger Ending

Warning: Full spoilers follow for Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times — if we’re talking about Hollywood’s current franchise-forward decree where trilogies and beyond are every studio’s goal.

We need look no further than the recent endings of Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which while both are cliffhangers, also play very, very differently from one another. Sure, audiences may have been surprised by how abruptly either film ended, but the ways in which the two hopeful blockbusters executed their cliffhangers — and how they treat their fanbases — speaks volumes about how these larger-than-life franchise films can and should be made.

Let’s dig into why Across the Spider-Verse gets away with what Fast X cannot!

The Best of Times/The Worst of Times

Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are just two recent examples of contemporary moviemaking trends that put a massive stress on milking recognizable IPs for as many “universe” entries as audiences will financially support. It’s not an unfounded strategy — think about marathon horror franchises like Friday the 13th that started in the ‘80s or pre-planned trilogies like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptations. But it has become a crutch for multiplex theaters and superproducers alike. Studios chase the highest profit margins, making decisions based on box office returns. Consumers dictate what hits their screens by talking with their wallets, and right now, the overwhelming data suggests that the average moviegoer wants familiar characters (superheroes), recognizable stories (with superheroes), and the comforts of blockbusters based on known properties (loaded with superhero battles).

Financially, it makes sense. This past Memorial Day was a bloodbath for original movies in theaters. Bert Kreischer’s stand-up anecdote turned comedy feature The Machine, a Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro vehicle called About My Father, and the Gerard Butler action flick Kandahar barely mustered a collective $10 million against Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid, which left its competition drowning in the wake of its $95.4 million opening weekend. This is a terrifying statistic to think about — made worse by SlashFilm box office analyst Ryan Scott pointing out how there is not “a single original movie in the top ten at the global box office for 2023 thus far” after a 2022 that saw Bullet Train crack #18 as the highest ranking domestic original. But it also brings out the worst tendencies in franchise filmmaking. Everyone wants their billion-dollar mega-franchise to the point where quality can suffer because decisions shift away from a creative, artistic process to become a mass-marketable mess of mechanical motions searching for shortcuts.

Fast X tumbles headfirst into traps that highlight the worst impulses of elongating franchise lifecycles, making the cliffhanger more of a slap in the face.

Paramount atop the list of follies that befall franchise starters is the temptation of telling a multi-film epic split into parts without thinking about the completeness of a single film. Paste Magazine’s Jacob Oller likens modern filmmaking trends to venture capitalism in his eye-opening dissection of the current I.P. obsession of Hollywood’s leading players. The goalposts have shifted to an alarming maximum profit mentality. As he says, “Tidy, consistent, sustainable profits—the kind of thing generated by movie studios that once offered a diverse slate of reasonably budgeted adult dramas, teen-date rom-coms, family films, and fence-swinging art movies—are a thing of the past for those in charge of the industry.” All this to say, we’re stuck in a cycle of blockbuster regurgitation that is our reality for the foreseeable future — but there is hope. Disruptors exist (and not fake ones like in Glass Onion). There has to be a silver lining somewhere.

Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are both products of a system that favors multiple entries no matter how they’re earned. Vin Diesel’s hot vehicular Expendables nonsense not only raced through 10 entries so far, but Diesel himself has revealed Fast X, Fast Next Up, and Fast Next After That will would indeed be the finale trilogy to Dom’s central story arc (which we now know will be interrupted with a Dwayne Johnson entry that’s supposedly Fast X.5). 

The similarities between Fast X and Across the Spider-Verse? They both attempt a cliffhanger ending, leaving an overarching narrative unfinished. The difference between them (besides countless obvious points)? Fast X tumbles headfirst into traps that highlight the worst impulses of elongating franchise lifecycles, making the cliffhanger more of a slap in the face, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse proves how you can leave audiences hanging without making them resentful.

Fast X: Barely a Movie

I’m a Fast & Furious franchise defender, but Fast X is barely a movie. It’s a glorified Super Bowl advertisement, better as a brand advancement tool for however many movies come next. I couldn’t help but chuckle reading Oller’s summarization of corporate-driven filmmaking directives, given how they’re the beat-by-beat blueprint of Fast X: “Make a movie about visiting all the old stars of another movie. Make a movie about getting sucked back into an old movie’s world. Make a movie where the events of another movie… happen again?!” Fast X does all of that in a clip show package that runs through trademark Fast & Furious hits because y’all loved the last few, so you’ll be stoked for two more. Who cares how we get there? Let Dom play Rocket League in Rome with a flaming bomb, swap character development for cameo appeal, and exit right before the climax because audiences will return no matter what. A bit presumptuous, no?

Fast X has enough running time at two hours and 20 minutes to tell the most richly crafted, topsy-turvy tale of speedy getaways and explosive vengeance — but that’s not the film’s intention. There’s an emaciated lack of meatiness to Fast X, overloaded with a roster of characters that come and go like director Louis Leterrier is flipping tiles on a Guess Who board at random. Characters struggle to find personalities with dialogue that’s essentially catchphrases meant for trailer grabs and muscles desperate to tear through tight-fitting clothes. Fast X doesn’t invest in the now, too worried about getting us high on exhaust fumes for at least two more box-office jackpots. By the time we hit the inevitable stoppage before Fast XI, we’re left feeling like we’ve seen one over-bloated introduction with no worthwhile mission. All setup, no substance.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune comes to mind as another offender, to a lesser degree. Technical elements are inarguably marvelous as cameras swoop over sandy Arrakis mounds under which gargantuan worms tunnel, but at two hours and 30 minutes (plus change), there’s ample time to weave a massive sci-fi-fantasy tale. Instead, the film ends as Paul Atreides becomes a Fremen and … that’s all. As IGN’s Scott Collura writes in his review, “… ​​there’s a shapelessness to the latter part of the movie that drags it down and distracts from its beauty; it’s a story that ends at Act 2, and it shows.” The film ultimately sacrifices structure to ensure enough material is left for the remaining planned follow-ups, and the first movie suffers. 

“If you build it, he will come.” Translation: If you concentrate on making one smash hit of a movie that warrants future sequels, you’re better set up for success. More and more, we see examples like Alita: Battle Angel squander first impressions because there’s a preoccupation about what lies ahead. Alita: Battle Angel is a snapshot of a manga adaptation that disappoints because subplots feel rushed to completion — there’s not enough time to honor a budding YA romance or impending God-like villains when everyone is already clearly worried about what comes next. Desperation wafts from the screen, begging for a sequel with actual storytelling rewards. Modern franchise hopefuls like this sacrifice organic appeal, finding properties with built-in audiences that they hope will gobble down safe-and-familiar recreations based on brand loyalty.

Fast X plays like a parody of the Fast franchise by trading a charming, wholesome absurdity for an inauthentic version of what an algorithm might interpret to be a Fast & Furious movie. Fast Five accepted that for the Fast franchise to reach its full potential, it’d have to play by Expendables rules (aka no rules) — but it did so with heartfelt toasts as sweaty bottles of Corona clinked in harmony with our cheers. A marriage of absurd automotive stunts that defied all gravitation science highlighted bromances, contractually determined beatdowns, and this believable sense of family that is (or at least was) the series’ signature. Fast X lacks all of that; it’s a 3-D printed model based on previous outlines that’s hollow on the inside. The check engine light is flashing bright red, but those at the wheel are too transfixed by visions of spin-offs, dollar signs, and marketing tie-ins to care about imminent danger.

That’s how you end up with one of the most embarrassing cliffhangers in quite some time in Fast X. Dom Toretto faces down Dante Reyes (a scene-stealing Jason Momoa) and after evading a semi-truck sandwich, finds his and Little B’s fate unknown after Dante blows a dam to smithereens. It’s the climax that never happens, trading a standoff between Dom and Dante for the meaningless shock of Alan Ritchson’s backstabbing agent Aimes as Dante’s inside man and zero payoff to Fast X besides one last cameo before the credits — oh hello, Gal Gadot.

Across the Spider-Verse and Next-Level Futures

But hey, let’s steer away from the doom and gloom because there are filmmakers who’ve made the most of, and continue to deliver quality and quantity. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy is a shining example of a modern trilogy brimming with thought, imagination, and follow-through despite being stuck inside a studio machine. I recently wrote about how Gunn played ball with Marvel as the Guardians films developed the grander MCU narrative, but never silenced his personal connection to the Guardians themselves. Some MCU entries get lost in the objective of telling standalone stories meant to further MCU dynamics by forgetting about that “standalone” aspect, while Gunn’s Guardians volumes all dial into their unique tonal frequencies. There is no “Marvel Machine” aspect to Gunn’s three Guardians adventures, which dispels the notion that all blockbuster studio output must jettison creative individuality and singular storytelling for the good of earnings calls.

In the same way, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse doubles down on the notion that Sony’s animated Spider-Verse films are beholden to no rigid studio confinement despite the plethora of Spider-People involved. The Phil Lord and Chris Miller-produced franchise around Shameik Moore’s Miles Morales — and Hailee Steinfeld’s Gwen Stacy, and Jake Johnson’s Peter B. Parker, yadda yadda — takes an almost anarchistic approach versus the sometimes recyclable routine of MCU and DCU live-action titles. In a time when everyone wants to adapt illustrated  comic characters to live-action with famous actors dressed in iconic costumes, Sony opted for something refreshingly the opposite. Make it animated, focus on a Spider-Man who doesn’t have three separate movie series (so far), oh, and make sure Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse packs a punch before announcing its two-part continuation.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse succeeds where Fast X fails. Despite both films leading into a cliffhanger that dangles on a flimsy string of cooked spaghetti, Spider-Verse doesn’t treat its placement between bookends as a pitstop. If anything, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the juicy meat patty of this promotional Burger King Spider-Burger with red buns and black poppy seeds. There’s more than distracting action set pieces and faces of old who appear for a cheap pop. Both exist, but they’re sidelined until necessary as Miles wrestles with his secret identity, or Gwen attempts to find herself with the Spider-Society. Multiversal storytelling expands as the canonical background of Spider-Man’s backstory — Uncle Ben must die, a police captain must die — becoming a meta-commentary about choosing our destiny rather than accepting the past as gospel. There’s a banquet of storytelling devices worth investment from Miles’ finding power in being an anomaly to Gwen and Peter B. Parker’s siding with Miles over Miguel O’Hara, all before the cliffhanger ending that sees our Miles Morales face his multiverse doppelganger who, in his reality, has become the Prowler in a villainous turn of events.

Across the Spider-Verse doubles down on the notion that Sony’s animated Spider-Verse films are beholden to no rigid studio confinement.

Where Fast X looks backward while trying to bottle stale magic from the past, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse looks forward to next-level futures. You could write thousands of words on the animation team’s bonkers-level picturesque multiverses that produce one of the most knock-em-dead gorgeous animated features… ever? Then there are newcomers like the totalitarian-trashing Spider-Punk who are able to steal the show as part of a smaller superteam, whereas Fast X refuses to let what feels like a gallery of a hundred main characters feel welcome. Maybe that’s unfair because Fast X has nine films worth of (flimsy as hell) continuity to contend with, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is only entry number two — but it’s more a commentary on Across the Spider-Verse’s restraint when valuing immediate storytelling or Fast X’s egotistical, indulgent impulses that tell a story like Chris Farley’s SNL celebrity interviewer character (“Hey, remember that time, when you did that thing? That was cool.”).

That’s the critical difference between films like Dune and Fast X, or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and, let’s say, The Empire Strikes Back. One subset values the audience’s time over the potential for drawn-out, chopped-apart multiple entries. The Empire Strikes Back is widely considered the best Star Wars in George Lucas’ original trilogy (at the very least), even considering a massive cliffhanger that leads into Return of the Jedi. Lucas might put Han Solo on carbonite, but the movie expands Lucas’ universe from Hoth’s icy tundras to Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer. It’s the same way Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse embraces the infinite fractured possibilities of a multiverse explosion that’s as memeable as it is authentically interested in exploring a Spider-Verse with endless reach.

As I said, it is the best and worst times. Fast X and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are just a microcosmic sample of the mindsets that will sink or save Hollywood’s fixation on franchising anything with the faintest pulse of a fanbase. The Fast franchise was one of the best at what it was doing for so long until it became the antithesis of everything that made it a rebellious, rip-roaring American action series. Fast X broke my heart, but Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was right there to cobble it back together with a glimmer of hope. Given the impossible fight original movies have against dependable tentpole blockbusters, it’s bleak times, as informed by audience support. Not to scold consumers, because they’re making informed choices for themselves and their families as ticket prices balloon in an ever-imbalanced economy — that’s a whole other editorial — but we can’t ignore a market-driven reality. If we’re stuck with theaters being overrun by billion-dollar hopefuls for the foreseeable future, I hope more Spider-Verses and Guardians of the Galaxys can fight the homogenization of spoon-fed IP “content” [shudders] à la Fast X and Alita: Battle Angel. A boy can dream, can’t he?

For more, dig in on all the Spideys in Across the Spider-Verse or catch up on who the broody, muscular, and funny Ben Reilly is from that film. You can also read up on our Spider-Verse ending explained or our Fast X ending explained. Or vote on your favorite Spider-Verse character in the sequel by heading over to our Across the Spider-Verse Face-Off.