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There are so many amazing potential villains for Spider-Man 4 — Scorpion (remember him from Homecoming?), Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin (no, I’m not letting that one go), and Jared Leto’s Morbius (no, wait, scratch that last one).
But what Marvel and Sony really need is someone who can bring something fresh to the franchise as well as perhaps tapping into another arm of Spider-Man media that is universally beloved. So what about skipping the usual suspects and having Tom Holland’s wallcrawler face off against Mister Negative?
Mister Negative is a character who needs no introduction for anyone who’s played Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, which plucked the villain from obscurity to make him a modern-day counterpart to Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin, what with his dual personality. His unique visual look is also a major draw for the foe and would be intriguing to see realized in the movies.
OK, so let’s say Negative in Spider-Man 4 got a positive reception at Marvel Studios; who could play him? Fans have the perfect answer. Namely, Donnie Yen, the master martial artist probably best known to American audiences for Rogue One and John Wick: Chapter 4.
In case you need your memory jogged, Yen’s role in the Star Wars universe was Chirrut Îmwe, a blind semi-Jedi monk, while he turned up in the most recent John Wick flick as Caine, a blind assassin. Although Mister Negative isn’t blind, Yen would no doubt relish a role like that as he was very keen during these two prior Hollywood appearances to subvert expectations and tropes surrounding Chinese characters. Negative’s a well-rounded antagonist who doesn’t fall back on such stereotypes so you’d imagine Yen would jump at the chance if it were presented to him.
Of course, one significant hitch to casting Yen as Mister Negative would be the fact that the actor is currently 60 years old and the Spider-Man villain is generally depicted as a man of younger years. An alternate, and equally tempting, actor suggested in the comments to this Reddit thread is Terry Chen, who you might know from The Expanse or The Last of Us. Chen even has MCU history, playing Pryce Cheng in Jessica Jones season 2.
However Spider-Man 4 shapes up, it had better get its act together fast as fans are getting antsy (spidery?) for more of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, preferably with more of Zendaya’s MJ in tow.