Thursday delivered some surprising news, as it was revealed that Jamie Foxx is in talks to return as Max Dillon AKA Electro in Spider-Man 3. Foxx previously played the supervillain in Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014, which makes this a huge deal as the last time he portrayed the role was in a totally different universe. As such, this either means that Spidey 3 will have a multiversal element or else Foxx is coming back as a slightly different version of the same character.
We’ve already had a precedent for this, of course, as J.K. Simmons made a cameo in Spider-Man: Far From Home as the MCU’s J. Jonah Jameson, not the same one he played in the Sam Raimi trilogy. Seeing as TASM 2′s Electro wasn’t anywhere near as well-received as Simmons’ Jameson in those movies, some fans believe that Foxx has been brought back to play a different, and potentially superior, take on Electro in Spider-Man 3.
If this is correct, then it could have major repercussions for Netflix’s Daredevil. Over time, Marvel Television’s output became increasingly separate from Marvel Studios productions, to the extent that fans aren’t sure they’re even part of the same continuity anymore. Beyond that, it’s also possible that rights issues mean Disney can’t continue The Defenders shows exactly as they were following Netflix cancelling them all.
But what Foxx’s return as Electro may establish is that Marvel can bring back actors as slightly different versions of their characters. For instance, Vincent D’Onofrio could return in a future Spider-Man film as Kingpin, with it left ambiguous whether this is the Netflix version or a separate MCU version. The same goes for Charlie Cox’s Hornhead himself or even Jon Bernthal’s Punisher. All that being said, most of the speculation points to Foxx’s Electro being the same one from TASM 2 and that he’s been brought into the MCU’s timeline thanks to some multiverse shenanigans, and that’s what WGTC has heard from our own sources as well.
In any case, with Marvel getting back the rights to the Defenders very soon, we’ll hopefully start to receive some news about what they’re doing with those characters in the near future.
