Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse offered a fresh spin on the Spider-Man mythos, serving up many characters new to moviegoers or reimagined takes on familiar faces. Take the animated flick’s Doctor Octopus, for instance. Little did we know at first that Katherine Hahn’s quirky scientist was actually a gender-flipped Doc Ock – named Olivia Octavius – but she ended up having a major role as a henchwoman for Liev Schrieber’s Kingpin.
Fans loved the character, too, so it’s interesting to hear that the villain may end up being the big bad for the upcoming Spider-Verse sequels. While speaking to Total Film about the character, co-director Rodney Rothman described Lady Ock as the franchise’s “most powerful bad guy.”
“In the end, we found the movie played fine without us tagging every single possible thing. But we definitely think of Liv as someone who is not gone from the story, and who in many ways, is our most powerful bad guy. She’s manipulating a lot of things to achieve her own grand ambitions.”
Shortly after Spider-Verse was released last December, it was revealed that Sony were already developing both a sequel following Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and a spinoff focusing on Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and other Spider-Women. We Got This Covered has since reported that further films for Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man Noir and Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099 could also be on the way, while the franchise will also spill onto TV as well, with a Spider-Ham cartoon announced.
We could be reading too much into Rothman’s comments, but it definitely sounds like not only is Octavius set to return in the sequel, but will probably be the main villain of at least that film when she does. Hopefully she’ll be joined by more original takes on classic Spidey foes, though. With Mahershala Ali as the Prowler, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse managed to deliver three awesome villains, so it’d be great if the sequels could follow suit.
