Spider-Man: No Way Home Concept Art Gives Jamie Foxx's Electro A Different Look
Sony and Marvel Studios pulled out all the stops when it came to Tom Holland's third solo web-spinning session in the MCU's Spider-Man story. Besides bringing back Tobey Maguire and Andrew "I love you guys" Garfield's beloved iterations of the iconic wall-crawler, there were a whole host of villains the trio had to tackle in "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Among the ranks of bad guys was Jamie Foxx, reprising his role as Max Dillon, aka Electro.
Foxx's villain first appeared in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," where both his attitude and appearance " were drastically different from how he was presented in "No Way Home." Evoking the character's green and yellow comic book colors by way of an EMT jacket, it's now been revealed that one of the alternative designs from MCU concept artist and creature designer Jerad S. Marantz was even closer to Electro's classic look, a color scheme that would have been provided by Max's own incredible power.
Following the release of the "Spider-Man: No Way Home – The Art of the Movie" book, Marantz posted some of his initial designs on Instagram showing early iterations of Electro's new look before reaching his final version. "My original assignment was to update the suit from 'Amazing Spider-Man two,' and I pitched an idea that the suit burns off, exposing a more comic accurate under layer beneath it," said Marantz. "Really fun concept to work on. I was playing with a bit of a circuit board motif." This wasn't the artist's first attempt at rewiring Electro, though. In fact, it was going back to the drawing board for some of his early work that he was given a second chance.
Marantz felt pride giving old Electro designs some new life
It's not unusual for artists to reapply old ideas and designs elsewhere, and Marantz did just that for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" by pulling from his work on "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." Marantz had actually worked on the Marvel character's original design for the Marc Webb film, but the elements he tried to include weren't approved. Giving it another go for "No Way Home," things thankfully worked in his favor. "The one thing I am most proud of was re-pitching an idea I had for the first film. Since we were never going to do a comic-accurate Electro bolt mask, I wanted his powers to surge around his face, creating that lightning bolt star pattern when he powers up."
It's certainly a difficult job to make a villain known for having what is essentially a star-shaped mask look imposing, but Marantz pulled it off. "That was something I had Pitched on amazing Spider-Man two, but it didn't make it into the movie," he posted. "Round two, and I got it through!" Fans were in agreement with @gieroman saying, "The idea to have the outer layer burn away to reveal a comic accurate colour scheme/pattern in form of circuits is brilliant." @alt.cut also chimed in, saying, "Classic Electro inspired by look is killer. I'm just glad the star mask made it to the end."