Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy gave us two of the greatest supervillains in comic book movie history. First, Willem Dafoe knocked it out the park as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in 2002’s origins story and then Alfred Molina gave a definitive portrayal as Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus in 2004’s Spider-Man 2. But wait, what would it be like if Dafoe had impressed the director so much that he’d just rehired him to play Doc Ock as well?
We now know the answer to this unlikely question, as a little-seen outtake from production on the iconic Spidey sequel has been doing the rounds on Twitter. The hilarious video sees Raimi telling Molina how he wants him to play Octavius – before revealing Dafoe is on set and dressed up as the character, complete with robotic arms.
The actor gives his own take on the famous scene where the scientist begins his fusion energy experiment before the crew whoops in applause. The video also features what appears to be Molina and Dafoe’s first ever meeting.
All this Spider-Man talk lately and y'all gonna forget about the GOAT Doc Ock, Willem Dafoe ?pic.twitter.com/YQAUIdpNhi
— Fandom (@getFANDOM) April 15, 2020
Though Spider-Man 2 and its predecessor are beloved, Raimi wasn’t quite able to score a hat-trick with 2007’s Spider-Man 3, though it’s well-documented that studio interference is at least partly to blame for that. The director hoped to clear his name somewhat with Spider-Man 4, but unfortunately that wasn’t to be.
The amazing thing is, though, that Raimi has finally been given the opportunity to helm another Marvel movie. After months of reports, the filmmaker confirmed just this week that he’s been hired by Marvel to take over Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness from Scott Derrickson. There’s even hope that the multiversal angle of the film could allow him to bring back Tobey Maguire’s wall-crawler.
We’ll just have to wait and see about that, but now I think we’d all like to have Dafoe come back as an alt-Doc Ock, after this weird and wonderful Spider-Man 2 outtake.
