Even with the identity of the actor playing him now known, with the announcement of Rhys Ifans in the part at the beginning of this week, the details of who Spidey would be fighting in Marc Webb's upcoming reboot of "Spider-Man" had remained vague. John Malkovich had been cast as The Vulture in what would have been Sam Raimi's fourth outing in the franchise, but when the plug was pulled late last year on that version, it left things up in the air.Rumors of The Vulture appearing remained (although where Webb & co would have found the dramatic potential in Peter Parker going up against the New York Magazine pop culture blog beats us...), and Deadline briefly linked Philip Seymour Hoffman to the role of Venom (played in the third Raimi movie by Topher Grace), but one character has been consistently mentioned in reports since casting began: The Lizard. Both Michael Fassbender and Christoph Waltz were mentioned in connection with the role, but when Marc Webb praised Ifans' mix of "warmth and rage," in the press release announcing the actor's casting, many, including us, speculated that we would indeed see the character in the film.
And indeed, The Wrap have confirmed that Ifans will be playing Dr. Curt Connors, who transforms into a creature known as The Lizard after an experiment intended to grow his missing arm back goes wrong. The role was previously taken by Dylan Baker ("Happiness"), who played Connors in all three Raimi movies, but never got to take center stage.
It makes sense that Webb and Sony would want to go for a villain not featured in any of the previous films, although we hope they go down a different route than "Peter Parker's mentor goes bad," which was covered fairly convincingly by Alfred Molina in "Spider-Man 2," easily the best film of the franchise to date. Ifans will be up against Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, and filming begins by the end of the year for a summer 2012 release.
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