Last month, GWW reported that Spider-Man 2 actor Alfred Molina was spotted on the set of Spider-Man 3 sparking the rumor that he’d be returning to the role of Doctor Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus.

A source within Disney/Marvel has informed GWW that Alfred Molina will be returning to the Spider-Man franchise to reprise his role as the famed Doctor Octopus. Plot details are of course scarce as they always are with the super secretive Marvel productions, but we were informed Molina arrived on set a bit ago to work on some stunt choreography and has started filming his scenes in the past couple weeks.

This news has now been confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter.

Alfred Molina is putting back on the metal arms and will reprise his role as the villainous Doctor Octopus, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

This is starting to feel like Marvel Studios is indeed assembling The Sinister Six as the villains of the film given that they’ve also brought back Jamie Foxx as the villain Electo and while this might seem like more confirmation of a Multiverse project. J.K. Simmons is another actor from the Sam Raimi era that seemingly has made the jump to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as seen returning to the role of J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but not back in the version from the original Raimi films.

One way for Marvel and Sony to simply use The Sinister Six without giving all six villains new origins and backstories is to bring back familiar faces that audiences already know as these characters. This is a neat way to bring back villains without too much of a heavy handed reboot of them, although, I personally believe Marvel may end up giving both Electro and Doctor Octopus character updates for the MCU. Even J. Jonah Jameson doesn’t seem his campy self and has certainly been altered to fit Marvel’s superhero universe as he looks to be more like an Alex Jones-type rather than an old timey newspaper man obsessed with Spider-Man photos.

Two other members could easily be Michael Keaton’s Vulture and Michael Mando’s Scorpion both could be part of the prison break suggested in the trailer for Jared Leto’s Morbius. Scorpion’s origin in the comics has a direct connection to J. Jonah Jameson but they’ve already established that he hates Spider-Man since he scared his face and sent him to prison.

Quentin Beck aka Mysterio faking his death also could be a possibly.

Its also worth pointing out that Sam Raimi is working on a Multiverse film with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness (currently shooting at Longcross Studios) and Benedict Cumberbatch is reprising his role as Strange in Spider-Man 3, however, the scale of the superhero crossover isn’t known.

Spider-Man 3 is currently filming in Atlanta under the working title The November Project and is expected to swing into theaters on December 17th, 2021.

SOURCE: GWW & THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER