I love this behind-the-scenes video from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 because without the CGI movie magic, it makes Spidey seem like a real wizard with even more extraordinary powers. He simply waves his hands, and Paul Giamatti‘s  pants drop. No webbing required. This is Harry Potter territory. Plus, the sense of humor here is great — this is what a teenager does with great power and great responsibility. Some light humiliation followed by a few slick dance moves. The confidence is solid, but Spidey should really learn not to leave automatic weapons lying in the street. [SuperHeroHype]

Spider-Man fans know that the original version of Electro had a kind of jiggling starfish on his face (as you can see above), the power to control electricity, and (obviously) a deep and abiding love for all things Brazilian. The character has been updated several times — including a flaming skull look and a brief stint as Red Skull’s son — but for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it turns out that Marc Webb and company are going with the Ultimate version of the character. “News organization” The Daily Mail recently published some candid shots of Foxx in full effects make-up as the villain (which you can see below). There’s a little bit of Avatar going on and a little bit of Schwarzenegger-style Mr. Freeze, but it seems clear that they’re going all out with the design. Of course, Peter fought a giant lizard last time, so the door’s wide open for treating the villains as insanely as the comics did. Check out the pics for yourself and please offer your own descriptive combinations:

Tonight in Movie News After Dark, we’ve got actionable items of to-do-ness for you. From learning about Neill Blomkamp’s latest to watching Marc Webb show off his Spidey-sets to remembering KFBR392, we’ve got a big list of things that every movie lover should be doing this evening. Lets get started.

In case you were worrying that Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man sequel didn’t have enough of Spidey’s villains rumored to be appearing in it, Heat Vision now has a report confirming that the film is going to, in some way, feature the Wall-Crawler’s most hated villain of all time, unhinged industrialist Norman Osborn. According to the report, Chris Cooper (of American Beauty, Adaptation, and The Muppets fame) has signed on to play the role. For those who have even glanced at a “Spider-Man” comic over the last fifty years or have seen Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, where this same character was played by Willem Dafoe, you know that Osborn starts off as a generic rich jerk, but eventually he experiences an accident that leaves him completely insane and with a split personality who refers to himself as The Green Goblin.

The fine folks over at Coming Soon have scored an official image of the Spidey suit from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the result is something big and bold albeit a bit familiar. Plus, if you’re fighting crime, this looks pretty comfortable to do it in. In the sequel to the incredibly tepid reboot, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is crawling his way through high school while juggling his love for  Gwen (Emma Stone) and his promise to stay away from her. A new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), enters the scene, and Pete’s old buddy Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) brings that whole semi-abandoned plot line from the first film about a secret Parker past back  from wherever it was left. Sounds fun! The movie hits May 2, 2014.

Like any comic property that has a million built-in fans, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is already getting swirled up in the rumor mill. Most recently is the thought that Marc Webb is planning on bringing Venom back to the big screen. The boys over at /Film do a good job collecting what meager evidence there is here. If you don’t feel like clicking over, it goes something like this: Webb tweeted a photo of a locker numbered #14 that looks exactly like a locker numbered #14 from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic books that contained the Venom symbiote. Additionally, Sony seems fairly intent on making a stand-alone Venom movie for some reason, despite never having gotten the character right to begin with. Their thinking is simple. If comic book fans have a soft spot for Venom, why not bring him to the big screen? Sounds great, Sony, but it’ll only work if you don’t ruin him.

Consider the slow news days over with this amazing bit of casting buzz. Variety reports that Jamie Foxx is currently in “early talks” to take on the main villain role in the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with Foxx reportedly looking to take on the epic super-villain role of Electro. The outlet provides a bare bones explanation of the character, telling us that “Electro is the alter ego of Max Dillon, an enemy of Spider-Man who gains the ability to control electricity after being struck by lightning. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the character first appeared in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man #9′ in February 1964.” With Dr. Curt Connors’ own alter ego super-villain, The Lizard, finally getting his chance to wreck havoc on ol’ Spidey’s life (after he was hinted at heavily during Sam Raimi’s previous trilogy), Electro seems like a natural fit. Variety also notes that, in ”The Amazing Spider-Man’s” post-credit sequence, background lightning plays a major part, leading many fans to already speculate that it would be Electro to next take center stage at the main baddie. To add fuel to this speculation fire, Foxx has already tweeted about the news…sort of. This afternoon, the actor issued this tweet:

Though reactions to Marc Webb’s reboot of Sony’s Spider-Man franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man, were mixed, the one thing that nearly everyone was in agreement on was that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone made for an upgrade in principal actors over Sam Raimi’s choice of Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst for his trilogy. Stone especially seemed like a breath of fresh air, as Dunst’s version of Mary Jane Watson wasn’t written to be like the character comic fans loved from the very beginning, and getting the chance to restart the story using Peter Parker’s real first girlfriend, Gwen Stacy…well, it just felt right. That leaves the question of Spider-Man’s second girlfriend hanging over Webb’s new franchise, however. Everyone knows that the love triangle he gets thrust into with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane is a big part of Spider-Man’s early stories, so do Webb and crew have plans to introduce the confident and vivacious Mary Jane of the comic books into their future films, even if it could mess up the goldmine of chemistry they’ve discovered between Garfield and Stone? If a new report from Variety is to be believed, the answer is yes, and if things end up playing out like they’re looking to, that might be a good thing. According to the trade, Webb and company are currently in negotiations with The Descendants star Shailene Woodley to board the Amazing Spider-Man sequel as the aforementioned Mary Jane Watson. As anyone who saw The Descendants can tell you, despite the

Despite the fact that it opened to mixed reviews and didn’t bring in as much coin as the movies in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, director Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man was profitable enough that it was sure to spawn at least one sequel. Given the fact that the reboot wasn’t successful enough to be crowed about as a home run, and Webb was reportedly looking for a raise to work on a second film, however, it was always in doubt who would actually end up helming a second go-around with the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man. We can all stop speculating now though, because Columbia Pictures has announced [via THR] that Webb has been signed for the sequel and will reunite with stars Andrew Garfield and (most likely) Emma Stone to begin shooting sometime in early 2013. At this point the film has been slotted in for a May 2, 2014 release.

Sony doesn’t need time to take a breath. They’re already planning on shooting the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man sometime in early 2013. That’s not set in stone of course (because, you know, the movie has to earn a sequel first), but the studio has already hired the superstar pairing of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to re-write the script from James Vanderbilt. According to Deadline Five Burroughs, the pair are “excited to be part of [the] legendary franchise,” which is better than being ho-hum about writing for Peter Parker. It’s a fairly obvious choice considering their work on giant budget fare like Tranformers and Star Trek, and they’re talented. No doubt about that. But they’re specifically talented at use broad brushstrokes and pouring on the melted butter. That’s a rare talent to be sure, but while it’s easy to see that brand of largeness brought to the action of Spider-Man, it’s the more intimate moments that might suffer. Of course, the pair have also had their work pushed through the vision of Michael Bay, J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau so it’s not exactly easy to pick out where they shine individually. At any rate, they’re veterans of the tentpole game, and Sony could do worse than to rely on them to bring a second story to life.

With almost exactly 11 months to go before The Amazing-Spider Man hits screens in July, Sony is already staking its claim to May 2, 2014 to release the second installment. An unnamed Sony executive told Deadline Downtown, “I think it speaks volumes about our confidence in what we are seeing on the new film and our desire to move quickly on the next installment.” Confidence, yes. Plus, they lose nothing by announcing it this early. They get a boost in buzz, and they never even have to fulfill that promise if they don’t see the need to. What it truly shows is a commitment toward building this franchise back up no matter what audience response is. And why not? The Amazing Spider-Man will undoubtedly make a large amount of money, and as we’ve seen with Warners and Green Lantern, even losing money isn’t a deterrent to studios who are determined to get more superheroes into theaters. If they were really confident, they’d set a date for Amazing Spider-Man 3. 2016, baby!