Spider-Man: No Way Home Posters Highlight The Returning Villains
Fans ended up embracing Tom Holland's casting as Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in record time, a choice that gave the classic Marvel hero a much more youthful energy that had been missing from the character throughout previous iterations. That said, it's probably safe to say that the real stars of the show in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" are the cast of villains who will be smashing through the confining walls of their own continuities to cause all sorts of multiversal trouble for the MCU's Spider-Man. The mere appearance of Alfred Molina's digitally de-aged Doc Ock saying "Hello, Peter" at the end of the first trailer was more than enough to send fans into hysterics, and the latest trailer doubled down on the nostalgia with its many teases of even more supervillains in the form of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, Thomas Haden Church's Sandman, Jamie Foxx's Electro, and even Rhys Ifans' Lizard.
Though the marketing for this rumor-filled blockbuster is still playing coy about possible major roles for Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's respective versions of Spider-Man, the dam of information is slightly bursting with the arrival of a batch of new character posters that put three of the returning villains in the spotlight. Check them out below
Spider-Man: No Way Home Posters
It's not easy being Peter Parker. Some days you're just trying to make it to class on time, other times you're dealing with a handful of dangerous supervillains from alternate universes crossing into your own and nursing a spider-shaped grudge against our favorite hero. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is set to make worlds collide (insert that famous "Seinfeld" line here) in an unprecedented way and both Marvel and Sony are playing up that novelty factor as much as possible. Three new villain-centric character posters have been released, putting Tom Holland's Spider-Man squarely in the path of Alfred Molina's Otto Octavius (which is a perfectly reasonable supervillain name, no matter what Peter and his friends may think!), Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn, and Jamie Foxx's Maxwell Dillon.
First up is Alfred Molina's Doc Ock. Now, I can't be the only one who feels like this gives off the vaguely familiar aura of my grandmother peering down her glasses at me in mild disapproval for clumsily knocking over my glass of orange juice, with the major difference being that my grandma didn't have a set of threatening mechanical arms surgically implanted into her back. Honestly, we're just happy to see Sam Raimi's legendary villain back in action, dodgy CGI de-aging aside.
Next is Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn, hidden underneath his ever-theatrical Goblin outfit. Interestingly, this promotional artwork puts the villain back in his old, traditional costume as opposed to the new and updated getup we see later on in the trailer. There are conspiracy theories out there that the movie may feature multiple Green Goblins running around the MCU, but how much more fun would it be if there were multiple Willem Dafoes let loose and wreaking havoc around Peter? Selfishly I would want Marvel and Sony to strike similar deals with other studios so we could get Dafoe's "Why'd ya spill yer beans?" character from "The Lighthouse" or his all-too-brief role as an assassin in the very first "John Wick" to start taking shots at Tom Holland. What, a guy can dream!
Finally, there's Jamie Foxx as Electro. It'll be interesting to see if "No Way Home" treats these characters as mere obstacles in Peter's path or as well-rounded characters in their own right, but we'll find out for certain when it comes to theaters on December 17, 2021.