Spider-Man Star Jamie Foxx Explains Why Electro Isn’t Blue in No Way Home

Jamie Foxx says it was a “conscious decision” not to have Electro be blue in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The supercharged supervillain is a being of blue electrical energy in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where he’s unplugged in battle with Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield). When the electrifying enemy returns in No Way Home — this time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the result of a botched spell cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) — it’s with a shocking new look: the “new new” with none of the old blue, thanks to a Tony Stark upgrade. 

“We talked about it, and we made a conscious decision not to be blue,” Foxx says in a costuming featurette included on the Spider-Man: No Way Home digital release. 

Explains property master Russell Bobbitt, “[Electro] came back as he was, but then he used the Arc Reactor from the [Stark] Fabricator to enhance his powers and his equipment. And so we had to recreate an entire new costume and equipment that incorporated the Arc Reactor into his world, and that’s where he gets his powers from.” 

“We changed him completely,” says costume designer Sanja Milkovic Hays, who suits Foxx in an electrical worker’s uniform after a burst of MCU energy reverts Max Dillon to his human form.

The new look has “a little more realness, street to it,” Foxx says. “I think the conscious decision to come back and have this look, really works for the character. You feel it.” 

In an interview with ComicBook, Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal revealed how Foxx was convinced to return as Electro: “We promised him he wouldn’t be blue.” 

For Foxx, who does away with the extensive makeup process that turned him blue in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Electro’s look “feels more today, modern, not trying so hard.” 

“I’m happy we got a brand new start, a brand new look. The blue, when we did it the first time, it was — look. Look, man, I didn’t care, I was just happy to be in [Spider-Man],” Foxx said during a Spider-Man villains panel at CCXP last year. “But with this, this ‘new new,’ it’s fly. The homies are like, ‘We get you now.’ When I was blue, they still rolled with me, but with this one, it just feels more comfortable.” 

More than 80 minutes of special features are included on the Spider-Man: No Way Home home release, available on digital March 22 and on 4K UHD April 12.