Electro's Confirmed Return in Spider-Man 3 Points Toward a Sinister Six Movie and a Live-Action Spider-Verse

Spider-Man 3, the follow-up to Far From Home set for December 2021, just confirmed that Electro, Jamie Foxx's villain from Andrew Garfield's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 back in 2014, is returning for this third film alongside Tom Holland as Peter Parker, Zendaya as MJ, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Jacob Batalon as Ned, and Tony Revolori as Flash Thompson. As I put it, "I don't think any of us could have predicted this," and yet here we are in what I'd call confusing times where anything seems weirdly possible.

Electro coming back is not a villain everyone would have put at the top of their favorite list, so the news is a bit shocking on its face. But this fits a strategy Sony has been building for years to make its Spider-Man universe increasingly intertwined with the MCU. I want to walk through why this is happening and what it signals for a possible live-action Spider-Verse that now looks increasingly likely, one that could eventually involve Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and even a live-action Miles Morales.

Sony has spent years quietly stitching its Spider-Man universes together

The clearest earlier example of this strategy was JK Simmons returning as J. Jonah Jameson in the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home, reprising the role he memorably played in Sam Raimi's Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films. That cameo was the most brazen crossover yet, bridging the Raimiverse into the MCU's version of the Spider-Man universe.

Simmons recently shed light on that cameo, explaining that he and the film's producers had long conversations about how to differentiate this Jameson from the one he played in the Raimi films. Simmons wanted the character to be different, but Sony's team really wanted it to be the same Raimiverse character, and Simmons lacked the leverage to argue otherwise. The compromise was making this version bald, which Simmons summed up by saying J. Jonah Jameson "either lost his hair in the last few years or he was wearing a hairpiece the whole time."

Other crossover Easter eggs reveal just how connected these universes have become

Jameson was not the only cross-universe twist. Far From Home included an Easter egg on a wrestling poster listing Bonesaw McGraw, the wrestler based on the comics' Crusher Hogan that Tobey Maguire's Peter fought in the first Raimi film, with a name that was original to that movie. That poster effectively became an inter-universal joke.

Sony is doing something similarly strange by casting Michael Keaton's Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming in the Sony Morbius film. That movie also features graffiti depicting Spider-Man labeled a murderer, tying into the scapegoating of the character from Far From Home, while the Spider-Man suit shown in that graffiti is styled after the Raimi-era suit. A set photo for Morbius also showed a Daily Bugle print ad asking where Spider-Man is, but the Bugle logo used isn't the MCU's Infowars-style design, it's the old print newspaper version from the Raimi films.

Weirdest of all, back in 2004 Sam Raimi included a joke in Spider-Man 2 referencing Doctor Strange, which prophetically foreshadowed Raimi later being hired to direct Doctor Strange 2 for Marvel fifteen years later.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 set up a Sinister Six movie that never happened, until now

In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Electro was last seen using electrical grid columns before Peter and Gwen overloaded him with electrical energy, seemingly wiping him out. That film ended by setting up a Sinister Six sequel featuring Harry Osborn as Green Goblin, Vulture, Doc Ock, Rhino, Mysterio, and Kraven the Hunter, but that follow-up was scrapped once Sony struck its deal with Marvel to share Spider-Man in the MCU.

What I find interesting is that Sony has more or less clung to that original Sinister Six plan within the MCU films anyway. Vulture was the primary villain of Homecoming, Mysterio was the villain of Far From Home, and a separate Kraven the Hunter movie has already been announced. Now Sony is bringing Electro back too.

Two big implications follow from Electro's confirmed return

With Kraven now confirmed for his own spin-off rather than serving as Spider-Man 3's primary villain, it makes it almost certain that Spider-Man 3 will be a Sinister Six movie. Based on Sony's pattern, I expect that lineup to include Michael Keaton's Vulture, Jamie Foxx's Electro, and Jared Leto's Morbius the Living Vampire.

Beneath those three, there appear to be a number of wildcard options. Michael Mando's Mac Gargan or Bokeem Woodbine's Herman Schultz as Shocker were both still active at the end of Homecoming. Some theories suggest Jake Gyllenhaal's Quentin Beck as Mysterio could still be alive after Far From Home, and there's also Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock as Venom or Woody Harrelson's Cletus Kasady as Carnage. I'm betting we'll see a female Doc Ock, similar to Olivia Octavius from Into the Spider-Verse, and possibly a new Norman Osborn or Harry Osborn as Green Goblin, which could tie into Flash Thompson's subplot in Far From Home about his neglectful parents. Some of these characters could be introduced first in Morbius or Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

Electro's return only fully makes sense with a live-action Spider-Verse

Jamie Foxx's Electro coming back is going to require some explanation, because even general audiences will be thrown to see a villain who fought Andrew Garfield now facing off against a completely different Peter Parker. JK Simmons returning was one thing, since he never appeared in the more recent Andrew Garfield films, but Electro coming back only makes sense if the live-action universe expands into something like the Spider-Verse, the interdimensional web of life and destiny from the comics that links Earth-616's Peter Parker with Earth-1610's Miles Morales and Earth-65's Gwen Stacy, all of which appeared in the animated Into the Spider-Verse film.

Sony must be planning to contextualize this in live action somehow, whether through MCU quantum realm or alternate timeline logic, Doctor Strange's portals, WandaVision's reality resetting, or their own aesthetic built specifically for Spider-Man. Personally, I hope it's a sticky patch of webbing that tears open on random surfaces, similar to the rifts to the Upside Down in Stranger Things, because I think interdimensional travel should not be clean and slick, it should require awkward, forceful shoving that ruins your clothes so that characters like Peter Parker can't hop dimensions constantly.

The best way to make Electro's return make sense would be for Sony to go all out with the crossover the way Into the Spider-Verse did, casting Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as alternate Spider-Men alongside Tom Holland in this story, with Jamie Foxx's Electro spilling into the MCU's Earth-19999 as part of that convergence. The same logic could apply to whatever universe Morbius occupies.

The real payoff could be a live-action Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy

I think the ultimate bottom line with a live-action Spider-Verse is the potential introduction of a live-action Miles Morales and a live-action Gwen Stacy. We already know Miles Morales exists somewhere in the MCU based on his uncle Aaron's line in Spider-Man: Homecoming, "I don't want those weapons in this neighborhood, I got a nephew who live here." If Miles is confirmed to exist in this universe, it's also possible Gwen Stacy exists somewhere around there too.