It’s been known since last March that B.J. Novak would appear in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but we’ve since been left to wonder what his role might be. Shailene Woodley’s replacement as Mary Jane? Peter Parker’s obnoxious co-worker who insists he could also be a superhero, if he weren’t so busy with “everything else that’s going on”? Some other clearly ridiculous suggestion? But now we need wonder no more, as director Marc Webb recently, offhandedly referred to Novak on Twitter as “A. Smythe,” which most have interpreted as Webb saying Novak will play “Alistair Smythe,” rather than a medieval forger of metals.
In the comics, as well as the 1990s Spider-Man animated series, Alistair inherited his dad’s Spider-Slayer robots as well as his mission to take down the superhero—and therefore, this technically makes Novak yet another villain, in a film that already has plenty. Of course, given that we recently found out that the Spider-Man movie universe will soon include endless sequels and spinoffs, we can assume that eventually everyone will get their chance to try killing Spider-Man, even B.J. Novak. You just have to wait your turn. [via The Hollywood Reporter]