Five Things We Know About Amazing Spider-Man 2

With two more sequels already announced, The Amazing Spider-Man franchise is here to stay--but it's almost a whole year before we'll get anymore, so fans are itching to find out more about the rebooted take on Marvel's wall-crawler. This movie promises a lot of villains, a lot of personal stuff going on for Peter and an evolving story that didn't even seem to know just where it was going to end up when they started filming--but now that they've wrapped, expect to start hearing and seeing more and more. What DO we know? There's a lot of kind of fun trivia going around, but in terms of the things that actually shed any light on the movie, they're pretty few and far between. Here are the ones that stick out to us:

Gwen Stacy plays a huge role Gwen Stacy's role was reportedly expanded in this film--so much so that Mary Jane Watson was actually excised from the final cut (more on that later). Given the wardrobe shown in a number of paparazzi photos, fans think they know just what might be in store for Spider-Man's first love...and if we're right it's pretty spoilery, and could make for a very interesting second and third films as the story plays out, and Peter wrestles with the fallout. As long as she's not randomly revealed to be conceiving future supervillains with Norman Osborn, though, I think we'll all be happy.

Electro makes an auspicious debut After keeping the character mostly under wraps before now, Electro's bluish visage is everywhere in San Diego this week (and on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, too). That's coming on the scene with a pretty big splash. You know how to do that--but even bigger? Making your first appearance as a supervillain by having a big throwdown with Spider-Man in the middle of Times Square, using your electric powers to their fullest on the scene of one of the world's most famous giant banks of lights and monitors. Assuming this (fairly well-founded) rumor is true, that might be a cool scene to share at Comic-Con now that it's out of the bag. it sounds like it has all the makings of a memorable scene like Spidey trash-talking the car thief in the first film. Also, it would fit in perfectly with the "Electro Arrives" promo clip that leaked out yesterday. The Rhino: Russian mob Dressed like one of the tracksuit "bros" from Hawkeye and tattooed in a spot on his head that will presumably, eventually be covered by a giant rhino suit, Aleksei Mikhailovich Sytsevich  puts in an appearance in this film, played by Paul Giamatti. His exact role and the nature of his villainy isn't yet clear, but we do know this: if he does indeed eventually get powers, it won't be his first run-in with Spider-Man; by then, he'll already have faced off against Ol' Webhead while in his tracksuit and carrying his guns. That's always been a part of his backstory, but not a huge one relative to the part where he stomped around in a big gray suit. Oscorp seems to be pulling the strings--and there's a goblin Just yesterday, Felicity Jones seemed to let the cat out of the bag that Dane DeHaan's Harry Osborn would indeed be the Green Goblin, as was previously rumored. That's pretty huge, considering that it means a decreased role for Chris Carter's Norman...but it also clears out some of the baggage from the Sam Raimi series, where they explored the dynamic of Peter fighting with his best friend's dad probably as deeply as they could in a feature film; there's not much more that needed to be said on that conflict, whereas pitting Spider-man against Peter's friend directly wasn't handled all that well, and has a ton of as-yet-untapped story potential. That doesn't mean Norman won't be a problem, though; we've seen a ton of Oscorp logos and creepy men in suits standing around in the background of set photos making sure that we know the place is as menacing as it was the first time around--and it would be pretty surprising if that didn't go all the way up to the mysterious CEO. Heck, we've seen set photos of a chamber that's purportedly where the Goblin is created that's definitely Oscorp's, and even that chip on Electro's head has the look of the company's tech. There won't be a Mary Jane (yet) In spite of having cast Divergent star Shailene Woodley to the part of Peter's eventual one-and-only, Mary Jane Watson, the movie won't actually feature the character, who was seen filming for about two weeks early in the shoot. Apparently when the "trilogy" became four movies, Woodley's part was cut out of #2, and it's not totally clear yet whether it will be Woodley or another actor who plays the part in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4.