Ask any Spider-Man fan and they’ll come back with only one answer for who should play the MCU’s Harry Osborn: Timothee Chalamet. I mean, who else would be better as Peter Parker’s rival for MJ’s affections than Zendaya’s Dune boyfriend?
Sadly, we’re still waiting on any kind of official word that this spot-on casting could come to fruition in Spider-Man 4 — to tell the truth, we’re still waiting on any official word at all on Spider-Man 4 — but that hasn’t stopped fans from theorizing who would be the perfect person to play Chalamet’s on-screen pops and become Earth-19999’s variant of Norman Osborn.
One suggestion that’s going viral? Multi-IP icon Andy Serkis! He is already the very goblin-like Gollum after all. Why not make him the Green Goblin too?
Well, there’s actually a good reason why not…
The MCU’s ultimate Green Goblin candidate has been named, but there’s one big problem
It’s hard to deny that Serkis would make an excellent Osborn. Especially if Marvel elected to continue drawing inspiration from the Ultimate Spider-Man comics and adapted the version of Gobby from the Ultimate universe — in that reality, Norman doesn’t just put on a mask, he actually transforms into a hideous, hulked-out goblin form. Serkis, the monarch of MoCap, would excel in a role like that.
Unfortunately, there’s just one big hitch with Serkis getting cast as Norman: he’s already in the MCU. Don’t forget that the actor played Ulysses Klaue in both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther. Sure, the franchise is becoming much more flexible these days when it comes to recasting previously used actors — Gemma Chan, Michelle Yeoh, and Mahershala Ali, to name just a few — but Serkis playing one major villain only to come back as another would be perhaps the hardest to overlook.
After Willem Dafoe just returned in No Way Home, maybe it would be for the best if Norman was rested for a while, before eventually being re(os)born later down the line. Chalamet as Harry, though? Snap him up now, Feige. James Franco who?