It's been 17 years since Alfred Molina played Doctor Octopus in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2, so how will the filmmakers account for the age difference when Molina reprises his role in the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home?
Simple -- his character will be de-aged via CGI, as has been done previously with characters in other Marvel films. Molina spoke of how No Way Home director Jon Watts reminded him of those previous efforts.
"He just looked at me, and said, 'Did you see what we did to Bob Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson?'" Molina told Variety. Watts was referencing 2016's Captain America: Civil War, when CGI technology was used to make Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark appear younger in a flashback sequence. The same technology was used on Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury in 2019's Captain Marvel, which took place in the 1990s.
De-aging via CGI has been used in other films, and while Molina admits the technology gets the look down, he points to Martin Scorsese's The Irishman as an example of its shortcomings.
"They made Robert De Niro’s face younger," Molina said, "But when he was fighting, he looked like an older guy. He looked like an old guy! That’s what worried me about doing it again."
"I don’t have the same physicality that I had 17 years ago. That’s just a fact."
In Spider-Man 2, Molina played scientist-turned-supervillain Otto Octavius, who became Doc Ock after a laboratory accident grafted a set of four mechanical arms to his body. The artificial tentacles gave Ock his extraordinary powers, a notion Molina subsequently recollected.
"I then remembered that it’s the tentacles that do all the work!" Molina added. He also acknowledged that while his mechanical arms handled all the action, as an actor he simply he had to appear villainous "with a mean look on my face."
"It was fantastic," Molina concluded.
After endangering New York City with his untested fusion reactor in Spider-Man 2, Doc Ock's good side re-emerged as he sacrificed himself to ultimately destroy the reactor and save the city. So No Way Home is not only faced with the task of de-aging Otto Octavius, its script also has to bring him back to life in the first place.
Directed by Jon Watts, Spider-Man: No Way Home stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Tony Revolori, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina and Benedict Cumberbatch. The film arrives in theaters Dec. 17.
Source: Variety
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