I’m Calling It Now, Dane DeHaan Is HOBGOBLIN in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

Marc Webb’s made a habit of Tweeting daily pics from the set of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, and while they’re usually uninformative pieces of Instagram fodder, this most recent batch hints at a potentially HUGE movie spoiler.

Check out this photo below:

While there’s nothing particularly mesmerizing in the picture itself, take special notice of the date typed along the bottom. March 83, huh? It must be significant for some reason.

Remember, too, that Marc Webb tweeted a photo a while ago of a cold locker bearing the number 14. After a few careful hours of debate (and a few glasses of Franzia… what?  We ran out of money.  Don’t judge) at the office’s of UTF, we decided that it must be a hint for Green Goblin, since that long eared bastard first made his appearance in the fourteenth issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Well, wouldn’t ya know it, a few weeks later, Gobsies was officially outed when Chris Cooper joined the cast as Norman Osborn.

Applying the same bit of basic detective work (eat your heart out, Batman!) we’ve realized that the Hobgoblin‘s first appearance was in TASM #238, which was released in March of 1983. Marc Webb doesn’t post anything without a clear intention, so I think we can safely assume that the lesser Goblin will show his ugly yellow face at some point in the flick. But that’s not the best part of this scoop. Let me borrow you for one more second…

What if Dane DeHaan, who’s been cast as Harry Osborn in the flick, is also the Hobgoblin? While this might seem a bit strange to Universe 616 purists (that’s the classic Marvel comics, for those not familiar), it would perfectly align with the Ultimate Universe.

Just to give you a bit of background, in Hob’s classical origin stories (616), a thug named Roderick Kingsley stumbles upon one of the deceased Norman Osborn’s various lairs, and steals all of his Goblin goodies. After a bit of elbow grease, he replicated the original super serum that granted Green G. his powers, and transforms into a Spidey bashing villain, truly worthy of the extra creepy mask and glider.  Cool story, but not cool enough.

BUT… in the Ultimate Universe, the one on which Director Marc Webb has relied, Harry Osborn is the Hobgoblin. If Webb is faithful to that particular iteration of the character, then Dehaan’s onscreen version would be much more sympathetic than James Franco’s take. In the Ultimate Comics, Harry becomes the Hobgoblin only after his father (and a hypnotherapist) have him safely under their control. He was forced to confront Spidey a time or two, but he always fought to regain control of his body, which was never successful, but he should at least get a few bro points for the whole “I tried not to kill ya” thing.  There’s a lot more I could tell you, but  I’m going to cut past all of these juicy bits and tell you the end, which is pretty fucked up.  So, at the end of this Ultimate Hobgoblin saga… Norman kills Harry in a one on one battle, and many manly tears were shed.

Daddy vs Son in an epic, but sad, fight to the death

Now, I think the Ultimate version of the character could work really well onscreen.  It would be a great way to differentiate this new reboot from the Raimi trilogy, a feat which Marc Webb’s first movie failed to do.  It would also add a much needed personal dynamic to the eventual Sinister Six climax that we’ll probably see in the 3rd flick.  Fighting a whole bunch of animal-scientist hybrids is cool and all, but we need the great friend-or-foe dimension to make it just that much more compelling.

What do you think about all this supposition?  Did I go a bit overboard, or can this kinda, sorta work? Is this picture nothing more than an allusion to an Electro factoid? Sound off!