Alfred Molina Discusses Doc Ock's Spider-Man: No Way Home Return

Alfred Molina Discusses Doc Ock’s Spider-Man: No Way Home Return

Even if rumors of previous webslingers Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield prove false, audiences have a lot to look forward to with Alfred Molina and Jamie Foxx reprising their villainous turns as Doctor Octopus and Electro for the Tom Holland-fronted Spider-Man: No Way Home and now the former has opened up about his return.

In an interview with Variety, Molina described returning to the role as “wonderful” while expressing initial doubt to director Jon Watts how his iteration of Ock would return given his death in the second installment of Sam Raimi’s trilogy, to which Watts stated, “In this universe, no one really dies” and will pick up following his death in the film. While this time-bending and multiverse-spanning approach could’ve put some stars off, it was the fact Molina had aged in the over 15 years since Spider-Man 2 hit theaters in 2004.

“He just looked at me, and said, ‘Did you see what we did to Bob Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson?’” Molina said, referring to the de-aging technology the studio utilized on the Tony Stark performer in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and for Nick Fury in 2019’s Captain Marvel. “They made Robert De Niro’s face younger, but when he was fighting, he looked like an older guy. He looked like an old guy! That’s what worried me about doing it again. I don’t have the same physicality that I had 17 years ago. That’s just a fact.”

Click here to purchase Molina’s last Doc Ock outing, Spider-Man 2!

Interestingly enough, despite most sources confirming that Molina and Foxx would be starring in the film, with Zendaya also referencing working with Molina in a conversation with his Promising Young Woman co-star Carey Mulligan, neither have been officially confirmed by Sony Pictures or Marvel Studios, while the rumors regarding Maguire and Garfield have been played down by Holland himself.

Plot details on Spider-Man: No Way Home are still under wraps, but is expected to see the titular wall-crawler team up with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange to face off against Jamie Foxx’s Electro, though with the ending of Far From Home putting Peter’s secret identity out to the world and the film’s reported ties to the multiverse shenanigans of the Cumberbatch MCU sequel, any number of his rogues’ gallery could show up for a fight.

Alongside Holland and Cumberbatch, the film is confirmed to see the returns of Zendaya (Euphoria) as Peter’s girlfriend and classmate MJ, Jacob Batalon (50 States of Fright) as Peter’s best friend Ned, Marisa Tomei (The King of Staten Island) as Peter’s Aunt May, Tony Revolori (The French Dispatch) as Peter’s classmate rival Eugene “Flash” Thompson and Hannibal Buress (Tag) as Peter’s gym teacher Coach Wilson.

Originally scheduled for a July 16, 2021 release, Spider-Man: No Way Home was first pushed back to November 5 and will now bow on December 17, 2021.