Good people, we have confirmation of the villains for Spider-Man 3… sort of. That crazy, ditzy A-lister Kirsten Dunst has let slip in an interview that Thomas Haden Church and Topher Grace will indeed play, as has been suspected for some time now, Sandman and Venom respectively in the second Spidey sequel.
Granted, this isn't 100% solid, but it's good enough for us – we have no reason to believe that sweet Mary Jane Watson (Dunst's role in the movies, in case you've been hiding in a cave for the last few years) is leading us a merry dance. Also, principal photography begins on the project in January, which means that all of the scanning processes for CGI effects will be commencing very shortly – if they haven't already, which in turn means that the script has to have been circulated to at least heads of department, etc. etc. Word gets around, and then it gets to Kirsten, and then we all get to know – brilliant!
The casting has raised a few groans and concerns from fans (doesn't it always?), but we get a good feeling about it – Church bears a decent resemblance to the character - apart from the whole being made of sand part – and it will be interesting to see if he can build on the credibility he has established recently since his excellent turn in Sideways, while we get the feeling that Grace will counter and compliment (in an acting sense, of course – it's not good to have super villains being polite) Tobey Maguire's efforts with aplomb.
Spider-Man 3 is set for a May 2007 release. Let the fun commence.