An unexpected villain was originally slated to challenge Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In a recent podcast, the Spider-Man 4 writers confirmed that the MCU movie almost cast another character before Jean Grey.
On the latest episode of The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith, co-writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers confirmed that Chameleon was going to be part of the movie as a “mind-controlling” villain.
McKenna said, “We were thinking, ‘God, what’s a classic Spider-Man villain that nobody has really done yet in the films?’ We were going, well, Chameleon. But how do you do that?. We hit upon the idea of mind control. What if Chameleon was using mind control? But then, they already used Dimitri, Kraven’s half-brother, in Kraven. So we couldn’t do Chameleon.”
This thought process was then followed by the idea of a telepathic villain who takes over the web-slinger’s mind.
Although they could not add Chameleon, the writers still proceeded with the idea of mind control in the movie. They turned to one of Marvel’s most iconic telepaths to serve as the film’s mysterious threat, Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey.
What other villains were once rumored to appear in Spider-Man 4?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has earned global success since its theatrical release. Apart from suffering from isolation, Peter Parker faces more than one adversary in this movie.
The slate of villains includes William Metzger, Jean Grey, a raging Savage Hulk, Scorpion, Tombstone, Boomerang, Tarantula, Shocker, and Ramrod.
Prior to production, several other comic book villains were rumored by industry insiders to appear in the movie, including Mister Negative, the Jackal, Rhino, Hammerhead, the Enforcers, and Paste-Pot Pete.
That said, Kraven the Hunter happens to be a major villain in the Spider-Man universe, along with his brother Chameleon. Fans expect to see them in the future installments, but nothing is confirmed at this point.
