Though production is already underway in New York City, a last-minute casting addition is being made to director Marc Webb’s upcoming sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Word comes that Chris Cooper has signed on to join the impressive ensemble cast for the pic, and he’s set to play the shady Norman Osborn. The character was famously inhabited by Willem Dafoe in Sam Raimi’s Spidey trilogy, and in comics lore he becomes the villain Green Goblin. Will Cooper be tackling the villain role as well? Hit the jump to find out.

News of Cooper’s involvement comes courtesy of Variety. The character of Norman Osborn was teased in last year’s The Amazing Spider-Man, but we never saw the character’s face. The Oscar-winning Cooper seems a fine fit for the part, and I’m eager to see what kind of story Webb is crafting here. We already have confirmed villains by way of Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Paul Giamatti’s The Rhino for this sequel, with Felicity Jones also playing a mysterious character. Some have speculated that Webb is creating his own Spidey mini-universe with this bounty of characters, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree.

It’ll be interesting to see if Harry (Dane DeHaan) or Norman Osborn takes a villainous turn in this film, or if they’re part of a larger arc that will play out over subsequent entries in the franchise. My thinking is that it’s too easy to have Norman inhabit the Green Goblin role, and DeHaan is such a fantastic actor that he seems a swell choice to play friend-turned-foe for Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker. I very well could be wrong, though [Edit: Apparently I’m wrong, as Heat Vision reports that Cooper will indeed be playing the nefarious Green Goblin in either this film or its sequel, after first being a mentor to Peter Parker]. Either way, Webb has really put together a top-notch cast with this follow-up and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the sequel plays out. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in 3D on May 2, 2014.

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