2021 is going to be a huge year for Spider-Man. First, he will be starring in his very own Disney theme park attraction at Disney California Adventure’s Avengers Campus when it opens on June 4th. But then, the friendly neighborhood web-slinger will come face to face with one of his greatest cinematic foes once again in Spider-Man: No Way Home later this year: Doctor Octopus as played by the incomparable Alfred Molina.
Last seen in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 back in 2004, Otto Octavius met his demise by sacrificing himself and his experimental fusion reactor to the East River rather than endangering the innocent people of New York City. However, as pointed out by the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spidey savant and No Way Home director Jon Watts, “In this universe, no one really dies.”
Now armed (or tentacled?) with a ticket to the MCU, the veteran actor has punched his return ticket into the young wall-crawler’s life and is excited to talk about it. While speaking to Variety about his role in the Oscar-nominated Promising Young Woman, he also touched on his return to Doc Ock opposite Tom Holland’s Peter Parker:
“When we were shooting it, we were all under orders not to talk about it, because it was supposed to be some great big secret. But, you know, it’s all over the internet. I actually described myself as the worst kept secret in Hollywood!
It was wonderful. It was very interesting going back after 17 years to play the same role, given that in the intervening years, I now have two chins, a wattle, crow’s feet and a slightly a slightly dodgy lower back… I don’t have the same physicality that I had 17 years ago. That’s just a fact.”
Though these may be legitimate concerns for any performer, Alfred Molina went on to mention two things that he still had going in his favor. For starters, Watts reminded him of the massive strides that have been made with digital de-aging technology by citing Robert Downey Jr. in Captain America: Civil War and Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel. But secondly, he recalled the nature of the role:
“I then remembered that it’s the tentacles that do all the work!” He sat up straight in his seat. “My basic physical move as Doc Ock, as the actor, is just this,” he said as he glared intensely at the Zoom camera and made a menacing noise. “I just do that a lot, and the arms are doing all the killing and smashing and breaking. I’m just going —” he glared again — “with a kind of mean look on my face.”
And as seen in the following clip, he’s not wrong about the doc’s signature mechanical arms doing work (werk?):
No time like the present to watch Alfred Molina doing Fiddler on the Roof with his Doc Ock arms… pic.twitter.com/kThVuwBSl8
— Bob Marshall (@bobmarshall) April 16, 2021
In all seriousness, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus is probably one of the best villains in all of comic book movie history. And while we haven’t learned the full details of his return, it’s certainly great to hear that he’ll be at odds with Peter Parker once again (albeit the Holland version rather than the Tobey Macguire one… maybe).
Here is why the most important part of this conversation is this small detail sprinkled into all the fun of reprising a role years later. Remember the climax of Spider-Man 2 that I mentioned earlier? The report says that the actor mentioned that Watts’ upcoming film “will pick up Doc Ock’s story from ‘that moment’ in the river.” In a cinematic universe that includes a vast galaxy of worlds, time travel, and a multiverse, this seems extremely plausible. But which is it? We may have to wait until the first trailer drops or even until opening night at the theater (assuming that it’s safe enough for everyone to return to a movie theater by December 17, 2021).
Until then, how do you feel about Alfred Molina reprising his role as Doctor Octopus in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’? How do you think he will factor into the current state of the MCU? And how do you think the film will explain the appearance of Molina’s Otto Octavius in this version of Spidey’s story? Let us know in the comments.
