Meet Pitah Pahkah, The Australian Spider-Man Cut From ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’
A unused draft for Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse has given us the name of the Australian Spider-Man cut from the film.
It makes sense that at least some of Australia’s 50 billion spiders are radioactive in the Marvel universe.
Last December we heard from co-writer and co-director Rodney Rothman that there were plans to include an Australian Spider-Man in a late draft of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse‘s script. The Australian Spider-Man would have had a very minor part, only appearing in one scene to illustrate the film’s stakes. Even so, the addition of a whole new Spider-person is no small matter.
“When I handed that draft of the script in I was nearly fired, mainly just because it was at a time in production when the idea of adding another Spider-Man… it demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of film production,” said Rothman to CinemaBlend.
The Australian Spider-Man was thus discarded to the writing room floor, and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse went on to win Best Animated Film at both the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards without him. It also received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature today, an award it will win if there is any justice remaining in this unjust world.
Filled with witty humour, stunning visuals, a chill soundtrack and engaging characters, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a fantastic film even without the benefit of an Australian. But now we can read what we missed out on.
Backstory has published the unused script for Australian Spider-Man’s appearance, which was to take place at the same time Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker and Spider-Ham are introduced. In it, the Australian Spider-Man introduces himself as “Pitah Pahkah”, and claims that his accent is actually Taiwanese – in his dimension.
Unfortunately, Pitah doesn’t hang around for long. All the Spider-heroes are on a ticking time clock, having just one day to solve their dimension-hopping problem before the instability kills them. And coming from Australia, Pitah is already a day ahead.
I would have loved a bit more of a glimpse into Pitah’s origin story – I picture him getting bitten because he didn’t check inside the toes of his shoes before putting them on. Hopefully, there’ll be some room for the Aussie Spider-Man in the future, as Sony is currently at work on a Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse sequel and several spin-offs.