Two Classic Villains Reportedly Appeared in Early Drafts of Spider-Man 4

We're still more than a year away from the release of the untitled Spider-Man 4, and rumors about it haven't stopped making their way online. At this point we've heard pretty much everything; from shocking claims that Spider-Gwen could make her live-action debut in Spidey's next movie, to reports that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will be back for one final swing. That being said, the prevailing theory seems to be that Tom Holland's Peter Parker and Tom Hardy's Venom will team up to fight against the King in Black himself, Knull. Even Sony itself accidentally revealed that's likely to be the case—putting all suspicions to rest. However, it wasn't always that way.

The first rumors we ever heard regarding Spider-Man 4 indicated that the movie was going to be a crossover as well—just between two different characters. The wall-crawler and Daredevil would join forces to defeat the Kingpin of Crime along with an army of other street-level villains. Not much was initially revealed about this version of the movie, but it seems like more details are finally starting to make their way online now that more time has passed. Case in point: We finally know who else would've sided with Wilson Fisk and let me tell you: they are the MCU's biggest loose ends.

Scorpion and Shocker reportedly appeared in early drafts of Spider-Man 4

According to reliable insider Daniel Richtman, an early version of the Spider-Man 4 script included Scorpion and Shocker as the villains. After all, both of their stories are far from over. The former made his intentions to hunt the spider very clear in the post-credits scene of Homecoming almost eight years ago (yeah, really). Furthermore, we don't "officially" know what happened to The Shocker after Spidey webbed him up to that bus near the end of Homecoming, but you'd imagine he has reasons to get his revenge as well.

It's worth noting that there's a deleted scene explaining the Shocker was captured by the police and even lost one of his gauntlets to a random student in Midtown High. So we can assume he's in jail—potentially near Mac Gargan—waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike again. Furthermore, the post-credits scene of Homecoming teased the potential creation of the Sinister Six, so chances are we could've seen that storyline come to life in the earlier versions of Spider-Man 4. The Kingpin, Scorpion, Shocker, and other reported villains such as Mr. Negative would've made for an amazing ensemble of the supervillain group. So it's unfortunately that is no longer the case.

Keeping the bad news going, Daniel Richtman also reported that the script for Spider-Man 4 is still being re-written. This isn't the first time we've heard about Marvel and Sony having issues trying to crack the code behind Spidey's upcoming adventure. In November of last year, rumors surfaced claiming that a delay is even on the cards as it would give writers more time to polish the script and ensure that it could surpass the heights reached by Spider-Man: No Way Home. At the moment, Marvel and Sony have yet to comment on this topic, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for any confirmation that the movie will be pushed back.

On the bright side, even if Marvel doesn't have immediate plans for Shocker and Scorpion, that doesn't mean they can't appear somewhere else in the future. After all, it's rumored that the confrontation between Spidey and Daredevil against the Kingpin wasn't canceled—it was simply pushed back to Spider-Man 5. So fingers crossed more street-level villains show up as well if that turns out to be the case.

Spider-Man 4 will be released on Jul. 24, 2026.