Much to my surprise, The Amazing Spider-Man turned out to be one of the better movies of Summer 2012.  While I’m a given to love the character, I must admit that I was apprehensive when seeing it in theaters, and I was happy to see it worked out well.

With a potential release date of May 2nd, 2014 already in the books, Sony Pictures is moving fast to get the second film in the series rolling. Last week, they announced that both director Marc Webb and lead Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker/Spider-Man) would be returning.  Emma Stone is apparently still in discussions to return as Gwen Stacy.

Today, Variety announced in an exclusive scoop that talent agents have been handed early breakdowns for the cast, and the villain for the piece is looking to be the classic Spider-Man villain Electro.

If he is indeed the villain of the piece, this will be the first time Electro appears in a Spider-Man film.  Originally, way back when James Cameron was rumored to be working on a Spidey flick, Electro was his choice of villain, but it never panned out. I think this would be a great choice of big bad for the second film.

If that wasn’t enough, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is also looking to be the debut of Mary Jane Watson.

In the case of MJ, word is that Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) will be the famous redhead in this film interpretation. I haven’t seen her in any films prior, but it’s nice to see that the Ultimate Spider-Man love triangle of Peter, MJ and Gwen will be making it to the big screen.

If that all wasn’t enough, word is, we could also be seeing Harry Osborn in the sequel as well. Given the Oscorp references in the first, it was only a matter of time before the Osborn’s showed up in this version of the Spider-Man universe.  I wonder if we’ll see Harry go evil before Norman, however?

With filming scheduled to start early next year, expect confirmation on both of these points very soon.

Source: Variety.