The Osborn family have been inextricably linked to Peter Parker’s story for decades in the pages of Marvel Comics, but most fans would be in agreement that we don’t need to see that particular dynamic play out on the big screen again. Willem Dafoe’s Norman and James Franco’s Harry were integral to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, but two Green Goblins felt like overkill in the end.
Not learning from their previous mistakes, though, Sony then put a different spin on essentially the same arc by hiring Chris Cooper and Dane DeHaan to play the same characters in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with big hints at the clan’s secret history never being mentioned again after the overstuffed sequel ended up killing their second attempt at a web-slinging franchise entirely.
Sony are now sharing the rights to Spidey with Marvel Studios, which has so far yielded critical and commercial acclaim despite attempts by the former to take their ball and go home last summer. Of course, the news that Jamie Foxx would be returning as Electro in Spider-Man 3 raised a lot of eyebrows, and instantly led to speculation that the foundations are being laid for a live-action Spider-Verse.
Adding more fuel to the fire, insider Daniel Richtman has now claimed that there’s interest in bringing Dane DeHaan back into the fold, even though his hammy performance as Harry Osborn wasn’t exactly well-received by the fanbase. The tipster doesn’t specify if this would be for the upcoming threequel or perhaps the aforementioned Spider-Verse project, but it was surprising enough to hear that Foxx would be back, and if indeed they want Osborn in Spider-Man 3, then the studio really needs to be careful that they don’t fall into the same trap as the two previous franchises by overstuffing the plot with supporting characters to the detriment of the story being told.
