Unbelievable Spider-Man 4 report reveals unexpected villain choice

Any Spider-Man 4 news is right on time as theaters near the end of rereleasing all the previous Spidey films from the three separate live-action franchise (and their respective versions of Peter Parker, played by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland). The plan has been to release each movie from start to finish every Monday. It started on April 15 with the 2002 Spider-Man and concludes on June 3 with Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The final movie will have us go back through Spidey's fights with Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Electro and none other than Willem Dafoe's infamous Green Goblin. I have seen these movies a million times so its not like I need a refresher to know how awesome this Marvel Cinematic Universe film is but I'll be in attendance to see it again nonetheless.

Afterward, I expect to feel similarly to how I felt when I left the theater opening weekend when the film was released in 2021: What villains are next? But that question may have been answered already.

According to a new report from Marvel scooper AlexFromCC, who is also a writer for The Cosmic Circus, Tom Holland's Spider-Man will end up facing off against Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus again in the MCU. It's not yet clear if they will be portrayed by Dafoe and Alfred Molina from the Sam Raimi trilogy, but the rumor does suggest that - if he doesn't meet these foes in Spider-Man 4 - Peter will go up against them before the end of his tenture in the MCU.

If these classic Spider-Man villains return again, it would be a mistake

Hollywood has a problem with their desire to rinse and repeat methods, plots, and villains that they believe to be popular. They don't seem to understand how deep fandom runs and how much a crowd will gravitate toward a project with unknown variables if the work is crafted properly. Spidey's neighborhood has too many villains to keep circling back to the same ones.

There are only two of Spider-Man's live-action nemeses that need to be revisited at this point. One, the Rhino, because what they had Paul Giamatti do with that role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 deserves to be stricken from public record, shoved in a confidential lockbox and thrown in the middle of the ocean. The other is Venom since Spider-Man 3 decided to exist, which is too heavy to reconcile. But even those choices should be further down the list of options (although there is another rumor that suggests an alternate version of Venom could surface in Spider-Man 4, even if it's not as the main villain).

We have seen eight live-action Spider-Man films and have yet to see him encounter the Kingpin. After No Way Home, you have to take things up a notch while keeping the story grounded. The best way to do that would be to introduce Peter to the evil incarnate, Wilson Fisk. Since Marvel Studios have now confirmed that the world of the Netflix Marvel shows is canon to the MCU, we have access to Vincent D'Onofrio (he's going to play a significant role in Daredevil: Born Again), and it's time to put him on the big screen with Holland's Spider-Man.

While it's important to take all rumors with a grain of salt, this is a potentially frustrating one that we needed to talk about. Spider-Man has one of the greatest rogues gallery of villains in Marvel Comics, so the MCU shouldn't need to revisit previous ones for the second time. Here's hoping they think outside the box and bring Peter Parker face-to-face with some different foes.