While speaking with Empire recently, Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts teased that the film is basically Spider-Man: Endgame. With the multiverse splitting open and bringing past characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s easy to see just how ambitious the sequel could be. One of the returning characters is Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), and a new image has been unleashed that finds the good Doctor hunting down Spider-Man on the freeway.
The CG of Doctor Octopus in the Spider-Man image looks a touch unfinished, but I can’t wait to see it play out. “When I was first pitched the idea, I was like, ‘Wow, that would be awesome if we could pull it off’,” Tom Holland said. “‘But there’s just no way it’s going to work. You’re just not going to be able to get everyone to do what they need to do. It’s just not going to happen.’ But it did happen. And it’s crazy.” Somehow, they were able to make it happen and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige felt that there wasn’t anyone who could play Doctor Octopus other than Alfred Molina.
I remember having discussions with Amy Pascal years ago. ‘Do we want to revisit villains we’ve seen before?’ No, let’s do Vulture, and Mysterio, and characters we haven’t brought to the screen before. But I remember thinking, ‘How would you even do Doc Ock again?’, because Alfred Molina is perfect casting. If you ever brought him back, it would have to be him somehow.
Similar to how Jon Watts has described the film as Spider-Man: Endgame, Tom Holland has teased that the sequel is being seen as the end of the franchise. That’s not to say that we won’t see Holland mask up as Spidey again, but whatever comes next is sure to be different.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will find Peter Parker (Holland) turning to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help when he’s unmasked and is no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a super hero. After some magical meddling, the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will hit theaters on December 17, 2021.