Last week, The Amazing Spider-Man 2's viral site, The Daily Bugle, hinted that Spencer Smythe could be in the movie, and therefore his "Spider-Slayer" robots could be included as well.  That's plausible.  It's directly referencing a villain, and Spider-Man's rogues gallery has plenty of mad scientists.  Additionally, the main villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), controls electricity, robots run on electricity, etc.  It's in the realm of possibility.

Then last night, The Daily Bugle comes along and just decides to mess with obsessive fans in order to churn out needless speculation.  Hit the jump for more.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in 3D on May 2, 2014.

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First, The Daily Bugle mentions Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans).  That's not necessarily a hint the Lizard will return.  It's more of an epilogue, and since Ifans hasn't been close to connected to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I seriously doubt we'll see the character.  There's no pretending there, just a way to keep The Amazing Spider-Man mythos going without having leak into the new movie.  That's fine.

And then it all goes to fan-baiting hell.  First, CS points out the byline, "Ned Leeds" links back to the comic where the character married Betty Brandt, but also turned out to be the Hobgoblin except then it was retconned to make him brainwashed into thinking he was the villain by Roderick Kingsley, the true Hobgoblin.  Mwahahahaha.

But that's not all!  The article also mentions Anny Weying and Donald Menken.  Weying was the ex-wife of Eddie Brock (a.k.a. Venom) and she later took the alien symbiote to become "She-Venom" (I never read those comics; I assume the difference is that She-Venom has boobs).  As for Menken, he was an employee at Oscorp in The Amazing Spider-Man #239, which is when the Hobgoblin story began.

So what does this mean for The Amazing Spider-Man 2?  Let's break it down. Electro and Rhino (Paul Giamatti) are the confirmed villains for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and then at the edges we have Chris Cooper as Norman Osborne (who became the Green Goblin in the comics), Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborne (who took on the mantle after his father died), and possibly Felicity Jones as Black Cat.  There's also the shadowy figure who somehow got into Curt Connors cell at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man.  Finally, we have B.J. Novak and Colm Feore cast in unknown roles.

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But you can only cram in so many villains, so let's continue to assume the following: the Hobgoblin and Venom can't fit into The Amazing Spider-Man 2 unless they get brief appearances or mentions.  So let's push them back to The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and that's where we'll see these characters.  This is where it all starts to fall apart because Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are still probably writing the third movie.  Since setting up three more villains takes time, the Sinister Six would probably only get half of the third movie, which is a waste of such a massive build up.  Thankfully, The Amazing Spider-Man 4 is due out on May 4, 2018.

And where did this all begin?  Revealed in the goddamned Daily Bugle viral site in the most esoteric way possible.  If this scenario pans out, then in 2018 please look back on this day—October 24, 2013—and say "I told you so!"

The point of the Daily Bugle's article isn't to clue you in on future villains.  It's to get you talking about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and drive the speculation machine.  And if you look at this article and the hits it will probably get, it worked.  Kudos, Sony.