Remember when Billy Dee Williams appeared as Harvey Dent in Batman and you thought to yourself, ‘Holy shit, they’re actually setting up Two-Face!’ I mean, that was impressive back in the day, even if it never quite got followed up on.
In the modern world we have something a little different. We have Dylan Baker appearing as Dr. Curt Connors again and again in the Spider-Man films, with no real indication that the character is getting any closer to becoming The Lizard, as he did in the comics. Now UGO is reporting that Baker said that he’s coming back for Spider-Man 4, but from what he’s saying it still doesn’t sound like we’re getting The Lizard.
From UGO, who got this info from folks attending a public screening and Q&A for Trick ‘r Treat:
When Dougherty ribbed him about “just appearing in the background”
Baker said that, basically, that’s what he’d be doing. It was unclear
if they were being truthful or if, in fact, Dr. Connors would become
supervillain The Lizard in this fourth entry in the film series. During
their riffing, Dougherty used the phrase “co*ktease for another year”
as to whether or not we’d see The Lizard.
Years ago, when Spider-Man 3 was just getting off the ground and Avi Arad was still involved in Marvel movies, I sat down with Arad and he told me that The Lizard would for sure be in Spider-Man 4, as that was his favorite character. Now that Avi is out of the picture I wonder if that holds true, or if as Baker – who just got the call from the production that day– says, it’s just background work.
With speculation that Spider-Man 4 and 5 are a duology it might be cool to see Connors become The Lizard at some point in this movie, and really only show up as the bad guy in the next one. A boy can dream.