Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus and Jamie Foxx's Electro have already been confirmed for Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin is as good as after that teaser trailer. For months, rumors have persisted that Thomas Haden Church's Sandman and Rhys Ifans' Lizard will also appear, but that's now been confirmed by Empire.
According to the @spidey3backup Twitter account, the publication notes that both villains will be part of the Marvel Studios threequel, though there's no word on whether they're the same Variants we met in 2007's Spider-Man 3 or 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man.
As noted, this isn't exactly a groundbreaking piece of information as the return of both actors has been widely reported online for several months. It is, however, the closest we've come to official confirmation.
Leaked pre-vis images have even shown Sandman and The Lizard locked up in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum alongside Doc Ock and Electro, so their return was expected. However, we can't imagine Sony would be happy for them to be mentioned in this feature if they weren't definitely appearing.
Stills from Spider-Man: No Way Home are also doing the rounds on social media, including a shot of Doctor Octopus battling Iron Spider. We won't be sharing those here, though, and would instead suggest hunting down a copy of the magazine when it goes on sale Thursday, October 28 to check those images out and to learn more about what to expect from the film ahead of its December 17 release.
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