According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Alfred Molina, who played the villainous Otto Octavius in 2004’s Spider-Man 2, will be reprising the role of Doctor Octopus for the upcoming sequel to 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home.
Molina originally played Doctor Octopus opposite Tobey Maguire, who wall-crawled as Peter Parker in all 3 of the movies in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy.
And Doc Ock isn’t the only villain to make a surprising return from Spidey’s past, with Jamie Foxx set to return to the role of Electro, which he first played in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the second of two movies featuring Andrew Garfield in the titular webslinger’s spandex.
What does this suggest for the third entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Tom Holland-starring Spider-Man trilogy?
For one thing, The Beat’s theory that an inter-dimensional Sinister Six may be in the offing doesn’t seem as far-fetched as it did at the outset of October – after all, the organization of super villains was founded by Octavius himself in The Amazing Spider Man Annual Volume 1 #1 (1964) by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Sam Rosen.
Plus, several other members of the dastardly team’s roster have already been cast in the MCU. In fact, Vulture (Michael Keaton) and Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) have even appeared in the first and second movies in the current Spider-Man trilogy.
Meanwhile, between the upcoming Disney+ series WandaVision and the still-scheduled-for-theaters Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, inter-dimensional travel seems to be very in vogue in the MCU these days, and swirling rumors whisper at the possibility of Maguire and Garfield donning the Spider-Tights and returning for a live-action Into the Spider-Verse.
While it’s possible that there’s only room for one octopus in the MCU, we’re still holding out hope that Liv may make an appearance as well – after all, sixteen arms are better than eight, right?
The COVID-19 pandemic notwithstanding, the third MCU Spider-Man movie is scheduled for release on December 17th, 2021.
