Could 'Spider-Man 3' see our hero battle the Sinister Six?
Another week goes by, and yet another fan-favourite Spider-Man supervillain we never thought we’d see again is apparently on their way back to the big screen. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the wonderful Alfred Molina, AKA Doctor Octopus in SpiderMan 2 (2004), will be joining Jamie Foxx’s Electro (from 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2) in the forthcoming sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The former, Sam Raimi-directed sequel is widely considered to be the best of the early Spidey movies, the Empire Strikes Back of its milieu. Not only is Tobey Maguire’s wallcrawler at the peak of his powers, but we get a clever take on the Doc Oc origins story in which Molina’s multi-limbed supervillain is both hateful and sympathetic as the overreaching scientist who finds himself under the control of his own, artificially-intelligent metal limbs. Rarely has the idea of superhero movie as epic tragedy worked quite so beautifully, and it is the British actor’s ability to inspire pathos and antipathy that lies at the heart of its brilliance.
The Amazing Spider-Man movies were always intended to be a complete reboot of Peter Parker’s story, to the extent that Webb’s debut 2012 instalment infuriatingly repeated much of the work already carried out in Raimi’s Spider-Man from 2002 – the death of Uncle Ben, that fight with Flash Thompson, etc. While Doc Oc was never recast, we got a new Green Goblin and an entirely fresh backstory involving Parker’s father that was never satisfactorily resolved. Yet, somehow, it now seems to be acceptable to cast villains from entirely different superhero universes in the brave new world of Marvel-Sony Spider-Man films.
Not that we’re complaining – especially if they also bring back the marvellous Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn – but what on earth could be going on here? The obvious answer is that the as-yet-untitled third MarvelSony Spider-Man movie (let’s call it “Spider-Man 3” and hope against the hoodoos) is going to mirror the Oscarwinning animation Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, and delve deeply into the Multiverse concept that has been firmly entrenched in the comic books for decades. (We also know it will be explored in Marvel’s forthcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.)
If a report in Collider is to be believed, the studios are also hoping to bring back Garfield, Maguire, Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy) and even Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson. If this all sounds like overload, Marvel and Sony will be confident there are templates in place to prove that movies with cavalcades of superheroes and gaggles of supporting characters can connect with audiences – not just Into the Spiderverse, but also the Avengers films.
Gone are the days when Raimi’s original Spider-Man 3 convinced critics that too many bad guys spoils the plot. Sure, there may be some confused fans who never saw the earlier films and have no idea who these alternate versions of Spidey are supposed to be, but the alternate universe concept plugs most of the plot holes before they even open. If you believe in the ideas posited by Hugh Everett III et al, then it’s quite possible that somewhere in the multiverse there’s a world where Peter Parker looks like Donald Trump Jr and Mary Jane is a comely hobbit. Hell, Into the Spider-Verse presented versions of Spidey who resemble a talking pig and a female, anime-style robot-whisperer, and nobody blinked an eyelid. Of course, it’s easier to get away with such wacky whimsy in an animated project, but Marvel has navigated its way through far more twisted narrative webs before in live action.
Could it be that Sony also gets to pull out an old chestnut and roast it over the fires of Hollywood cooperation? For the potential inclusion of multiple bad guys suggests the studio has finally found a way to bring its longmooted Sinister Six Spider-Man film to fruition, long after we all thought the idea had got stuck in Hollywood purgatory following the box office and critical failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
In the comics, all of Spider-Man’s enemies – most commonly Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Electro, the Vulture and Mysterio – eventually team up to try to take him down once and for all. With Foxx and Molina reportedly already on board, producers only need to convince Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Michael Keaton’s The Vulture, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman to sign on the dotted line and what looked like a project that could never really work on the big screen might end up finally becoming reality … albeit an alternate one.