Did you hear that? That's the crackle of casting news for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" tearing apart the walls of the multiverse once again, as Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, in what will be the last Marvel film of 2021, are not the only villains returning from past The new report from a trusted source in the entertainment world is that Doc Ock, played by Alfred Molina, and Green Goblin, played by Willem Darfoord, will not be the only villains returning from the past Spider-Man films.

Empire is not publishing the story online, but the folks at the Twitter account Everything CBM took a photo of the magazine's next issue, where they posted an update on the casting news. Both Rhys Ifans (as the villainous Lizard/Dr. Curt Connors in "The Amazing Spider-Man") and Thomas Haden Church (as Sandman/Flint Marko in "Spider-Man 3") will return for the film.

Sandman's return is also announced on the cover of Empire.

In a reply to that post, other snippets of the article are shown, teasing only the already rumored possibility that Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire will reprise their roles as Peter Parker in this multiverse showdown. Both actors have done a good job of denying their roles in the film.

Rumors and leaks of the amazing "Spider-Man: No Way Home" cast have been coming out at a pace that seems almost intentional, as if it were the latest game of three-dimensional PR, October 2020, The Hollywood Reporter, broke the news (as yet unconfirmed) that Jamie Foxx would return as Electro.

Two months later, in December, Alfred Molina told The Hollywood Reporter that he would return as Doc Ock (this was confirmed in the first "No Way Home" trailer). The same day, Collider published news that Andrew Garfield and Kirsten Dunst were likely to return, while a deal with Tobey Maguire was still trying to be struck. Emma Stone's participation depended on her schedule due to her pregnancy.

Months followed in which Garfield denied the reports. All in order to get things moving again with the "Loki" finale on July 14, 2021. Yes, even an unrelated show is functioning as a publicist for the new Spider-Man movie. Because that finale collapsed the multiverse timeline and definitely paved the way for the return of the old Spider-Man movie characters.

The next date on the timeline is August 23, and the trailer for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" revealed that the multiverse might collapse for a second reason: Doctor Strange cast a spell in Peter's favor that went seriously awry (Wong warned).

The last notice before this week was on October 1, when another big boom in the sky occurred in the post-credits scene of Venom 2, bringing down the wall between Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock and Tom Holland's Spider-Man. And in late October, less than two months before the film's December 17 release, two more villains were revealed.

Sorry if this sounds a little conspiratorial, but this all smells like a planned PR stunt. Sony and Disney Plus are playing a very clever game of tiger-dog fan attraction to maintain headlines while they release only one trailer. And, yes, we are being played right into it.

More on "Spider-Man: No Way Home" later.