After Emma Stone's casting as the love interest for the film, Sony and Paramount announced that Rhys Ifans ("Notting Hill") will be playing the villain of the film.
While the identity of the character was unknown at first, the next day The Wrap revealed that Ifans will play of The Lizard, the friendly neighborhood wallcrawler's science teacher turned nemesis.
The Lizard has yet to be featured in a live-action "Spider-Man" movie, though this isn't the first time Curt Connors has appeared on the big screen. The tragic scientist was previously played by Dylan Baker in all three movies of the Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire trilogy.
In the comic books, Curt Connors is an amputee who lost his arm in a war. After experimenting with reptilian DNA, he's able to create a formula that can regrow his missing limb. But there's an unintended side effect - the formula turns Connors into The Lizard, a monstrous reptilian creature with a savage personality.
The real downside to this is that this story would have had so much more impact if they’d introduced Curt Connors before turning him into a villain. Sam Raimi had the right idea by giving Connors a supporting role in "Spider-Man 2" and "Spider-Man 3", which left the door open for an appearance from The Lizard in any sequels.
Ifans is a terrific actor and I’m optimistic about Andrew Garfield as Spidey as well, but in my opinion there’s just no way this showdown is going to have the same weight to it that a Tobey Maguire/Dylan Baker face-off would have had.
