With actor Jamie Foxx onboard to play Electro, the production team for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” may spice things up a bit by bringing another bad guy into the fold. Actor Paul Giamatti is currently in negotiations to play supervillain “The Rhino.” Also, actress Felecity Jones (“Hysteria”) is in talks to play an unspecified role in the film as well.
For Giamatti this is like a dream come true. He had mentioned in the past that The Rhino was one of his favorite characters when he was a boy. This is what he told ShowbizSpy in March of 2011.
“I thought Rhino was the greatest thing when I was a little kid. It was a guy who was basically in this rhinoceros outfit, and I always thought, ‘Why don’t they have The Rhino in one of their movies.’ But maybe The Rhino wasn’t that big of a deal for anybody but me. … If they ever go with The Rhino, I would be ready and waiting.”
So who or what is “The Rhino?”
The character debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #41-43 (Oct. – Dec. 1966) as a thug for hire named Aleksei Mikhailovich Sytsevich working for an Eastern Bloc country. He volunteered to participate in an experiment that bonded a super strong polymer to his skin, thus augmenting his strength, speed, durability, and endurance resulting in the Rhino alias. The suit has a razor sharp horn and is highly impervious to temperature and damage.
What do you think about the producers bringing in The Rhino for the next Spider-Man film?
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is expected to begin production in early 2013 in New York. The film will be released in 3D on May 2, 2014. It will star Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Shailene Woodley, and Martin Sheen. Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner wrote the screenplay based on a previous draft by James Vanderbilt. The film will be produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach. Marc Webb directs.
Sources: THR, wikipedia.org