According to various sources, such as EW.com and Hollywood Reporter, Jamie Foxx is in negotiations to join The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie as the villain Electro. This comes as a surprise to some because Electro doesn’t exactly bring to mind Jamie Foxx. Maybe it’s because despite his Oscar-winning performance as Ray Charles in Ray, he will always be Sheneneh from In Living Color. It’s still not final but Foxx, ever the showman, decided to tease the masses on Twitter:
Of course, everyone wanted to consult with Marc Webb to see if he would address this new bit of info and he did. Sort of. According to Comingsoon.net, Webb dropped this quote when it was brought up:
“I think Jamie Foxx is electrifying! I think Jamie Foxx is one of the best actors around today. He’s such a great character actor and he’s a really brilliant guy. I would love to work with him and you’ll be hearing more on that shortly, I’m sure.”
Webb goes on to add that the dynamics of Norman Osborn are very important to him and will be a common theme through this franchise’s movies.
“I like Electro, I’m fascinated by Norman Osborn and the different inflections of him. And Harry. Mary Jane and Gwen are always interesting to me. What makes villains interesting to me is what they bring out in Peter. What challenges they provide for him. What’s great about Marvel and other comics is that often there’s a pre-existing relationship… It’s not just about the physical conflict he has, but the emotional ones as well.”
With the new origin story and reboot in the background of the last movie, Webb still feels an obligation to the Spider-Man canon but also feels he can take it to different places and explore different contexts not yet discussed with this iteration of Spidey, not unlike the Ultimate universe in the comic books.
“What’s exciting about moving forward is that, in the first movie, I had to still honor some of the important elements of the origin story. But I also wanted to redefine the context of it because I’m building a different universe than what we’ve seen before. A lot of the nuance is quite different. Now, as we’re approaching the sequel, it’s really exciting because I feel quite liberated. I have a universe that’s my own. I don’t have an obligation to the origin story. It’s pretty fun and exciting and I can dig deeper into the parents.”
Of course, the movie is starting to take shape with this possible casting, as well as the earlier Mary Jane/Shailene Woodley news. It’s interesting that Electro would go this route because obviously Webb wants to show a connection to Garfield’s Spidey, and I figured they would’ve cast someone more age appropriate to connect the generation gap better. I guess we’ll have to see exactly how this character shapes out, and for an official confirmation. There’s also the whole idea that Electro is Caucasian and not African-American, which I think is an absolute non-issue. Character is character and it shouldn’t change performance and how it is projected on the screen. I would like to think we are progressive enough to get past that but time will tell. He is a good actor so it would be interesting to see what he could bring to the table come May 2nd, 2014 when the movie arrives to blow your minds away. Hopefully it will arrive with this suit below.
Grizzly Bomb 