After a few days of speculation of which Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans might play in the upcoming Spider-Man movie reboot directed by Marc Webb, the question appears to be answered.
The villain this film is going with is Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard, according to The Wrap:
Rhys Ifans will play Dr. Curt Connors, better known as The Lizard, in Marc Webb’s “Spider-Man,” TheWrap has learned.
There had been rumors across the blogosphere that Sony was thinking of bringing back Venom for the franchise reboot, but that character will not be featured in the movie, two individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.
Obviously, no sources for this information have been cited so we will have to wait for that 100% confirmation from Sony themselves before we all settle into accepting this as fact, but The Wrap does seem pretty sure of themselves. I for one think this is an interesting choice to go with as it may go further in separating Webb’s Spider-Man movies from Raimi’s. Raimi tended to lean towards the more “realistic” villains (until the whole Venom fiasco – but we have all heard enough about that), whereas Webb seems to be willing to take the risk on a more fantastical villain – a man who turns into a giant lizard. Granted, his transformation is all “science-based”, so I don’t think it’s as much of a stretch as it may initially seem.
For no reason in particular, I have a lot of faith in what Webb is doing with this movie, he has a great cast coming together and some inklings of what direction he wants to take his version are starting to come through. I can’t wait until we start getting more details once this film starts shooting.