The latest bout of speculation swirling around the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man: No Way Home has focused on the identities of the Sinister Six, who will reportedly team up to act as the primary antagonists for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in his third solo outing, which may require an assist from Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, even if nobody’s saying anything.
In fact, the report that first floated the Sinister Six story named Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, Paul Giamatti’s Rhino and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin as the sextet, and so far only the first two of those characters have been officially confirmed for No Way Home, and it’ll no doubt stay that way for a while given the secrecy surrounding the project.
Of course, Sony have tried on a handful of occasions in the past to give the Sinister Six their own movie, so working them into an MCU blockbuster could be a suitable compromise. However, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group president Sanford Panitch recently teased the future of the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters, and it sounds as though he’s still very keen for the supervillain team to take center stage in their own film without having Spider-Man dominate the proceedings.
“It’s tough, because I think these projects are the kind of things we have to work on in the dark. They’re not ready until they’re ready. Kraven is a great example because we just didn’t rush it. We could have made that three-plus years ago… It would be very cool, wouldn’t it?”
It’s unlikely that Kevin Feige and co. could use those characters outside of a Spider-Man solo film anyway given that Sony retain the rights to the majority of the web-slinger’s friends and foes, which then asks the question if the entire lineup of six villains are going to make it out of No Way Home alive so that they can live to fight another day, or if an all-new and SPUMC exclusive Sinister Six will be formed.