Jamie Foxx Returned For Spider-Man: No Way Home After He Was Promised He Wouldn't Be Blue

Superhero movies come with a proud tradition of casting A-list, globally recognizable stars for major roles ripped straight out of the comics ... only to then bury them under a mountain of prosthetics, distracting amounts of visual effects, or both. Just ask Jennifer Lawrence about her Mystique makeup/bodysuit for those "X-Men" films or Oscar Isaac about his nightmarish experience as the eponymous villain in "X-Men: Apocalypse." Come to think of it, many of these war stories tend to involve actors specifically having to go blue for these roles for some reason. It's not easy being blue!

One of the most recent examples of this turned out to be Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon/Electro in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." The subpar writing for his character in that film didn't leave much wiggle room for a compelling performance — if you remember, most of his villainous motivation stems from Spider-Man, uh, not remembering Max's birthday? — and his VFX-heavy appearance made it even harder for the actor to emote. But life is all about second chances, as proven by the returns of Alfred Molina's Doc Ock, Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, Thomas Haden Church's Sandman, and Foxx's Electro in "Spider-Man: No Way Home." By all accounts, however, Foxx's return largely depended on one major stipulation: no blue this time around.

The impending release of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" can only mean one thing — Marvel's Kevin Feige and Sony's Amy Pascal making the marketing rounds and providing as little actual information or revelations as humanly possible. Though rumors continue to swirl surrounding every potential appearance by Marvel universe characters, most recently involving Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Pascal did let slip one fun little tidbit regarding Foxx's return and MCU debut as Electro. In an interview with Comic Book, Pascal and Feige are asked about a fan-theory involving that very familiar-looking arc reactor that Electro appears to be sporting in the new trailer, which could possibly be storing his electricity-based powers and avoid the need to turn him blue, as "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" did. In classic Feige fashion, he responds that, "I won't say that you're wrong. I also won't say that you're right." Pascal, however, interjects and makes one brief yet amusing observation:

"We promised him he wouldn't be blue."

It's easy to imagine Marvel and Sony coaxing Foxx to return with the added bonus of a (hopefully) better written character on this go-around, but also without the added complication of needing to deal with an all-CGI look. According to Comic Book, this is further backed up by Foxx's own words, who has noted in the past that a major selling point for him was that "...I didn't have to be blue."

Instead, he's now sporting some sizzling yellow electrical powers and a whole new look, possibly with some nifty leftover Stark technology to boot. Though lips remain tightly sealed for now, all our questions will undoubtedly be answered when "Spider-Man: No Way Home" finally arrives on December 17, 2021.