Considering every single role was recast for The Amazing Spider-Man, it’s highly unlikely that Marc Webb and co. would ever bring back someone from one of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, but if Alfred Molina were offered the opportunity to reprise his role as Doctor Octopus in Sinister Six, he’d take it.
While talking to Molina about his latest film, Love Is Strange, we took a moment just to see if he’d be interested and it turns out, he’d play the character again in a heartbeat. Hit the jump to hear more about that as well as how Molina’s Love Is Strange co-star, John Lithgow, would like to squeeze himself into the Spider-Man realm as well.
About a month ago, news broke that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was pushed back to May 4, 2018 and that we’d actually get that Sinister Six film first on November 11, 2016. In an effort to pave the way for that one, Sony included a Sinister Six bonus featurette on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Blu-ray. It doesn’t hit stores until tomorrow, but we did get a sneak peek at the piece and it includes shots of Molina’s Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2. After recalling how great Molina is in the role, he noted:
“That was the most fun I think I’ve ever had on a movie of that kind, you know, those big, big sort of features where you spend like six months hanging off a wire, you know, and that stuff. But it was the first movie of that kind that I’ve ever been involved in. I had a wonderful time. I loved it. I mean, I’d go back and do it again in a heartbeat.”
But of course, what are the odds of that happening? We’ve got a new Spider-Man, Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy, just to name a few. Sure, anything is possible, but it doesn’t look like we’ll ever get any cast overlap. Molina even pointed out:
“The thing is, no actor owns those roles.”
That’s when Lithgow chimed in to explain that he just wrapped his run as King Lear at The Public Theater and today, Molina was offered the same role, but in another production. Lithgow then joked:
“Maybe they’ll come after me for Doc Ock … how about Doc Ock’s evil twin?”
In all honesty, I’d gladly watch a movie with Molina playing Doctor Octopus and Lithgow playing his evil twin, however, Molina’s good friend, Michael Rispoli, has another amusing spin on a Doc Ock sidekick:
“When I first got cast, a friend of mine, a wonderful actor, Michael Rispoli, I was on the phone with Michael and he said – he’s a wonderful New York guy, he says, ‘Hey Freddy, I heard you got cast as Doctor Octopus, so maybe you need a sidekick. You know, maybe I could be, I don’t know, Captain Calamari!’ [Laughs] And I’m still waiting for something to come up to be Captain Calamari.”
The large majority of this clip is transcribed for you in the quotes above, but it’s still well worth watching the duo laugh it up about these ideas in the video below.