Close to twenty years after he debuted in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, Alfred Molina will be reprising his role of Doctor Octopus for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Audiences finally caught their first glimpse at Doc Ock in the first Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer and Spider-Man 2 director Sam Raimi reacted to seeing his old pal.
“That was beautiful,” Sam Raimi said while speaking with SyFy Wire recently. “He looks great, the animation’s great. I’m assuming it’s not puppeted because when we did Doc Ock, we had puppets and animation for his octopus tentacles. But it was smooth and powerful and I loved his costume they kept [from the original]. I think it’s gonna be a great movie.” Doctor Octopus may not be the only Sam Raimi Spider-Man villain to make an appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home as we also caught a glimpse of one of the Green Goblin’s pumpkin bombs. Tom Holland has previously teased that the trailer was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of reveals, so we likely have many more surprises to look forward to. Of course, now that Sam Raimi has returned to Marvel with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he may very well have the opportunity to work with some of the characters he helped bring to the big screen.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will find Peter Parker (Holland) turning to Doctor Strange 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. As for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, we don’t know all that much about the sequel just yet, only that it will also star Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch. Now that she’s more fully embraced her powers following the events of WandaVision, she will likely be a force to be reckoned with.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will hit theaters on December 17, 2021, followed by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on March 25, 2022.