Some 20 years after Willem Dafoe jumped on his Goblin glider and soared into Sam Raimi\u2019s Spider-Man, the star\u2019s terrifying turn as Norman Osborn and his unhinged alter ego still stands as one of the best superhero movie performances of all time. <\/span><\/p>\n And as we mark two decades since the May 2002 release of the seminal superhero flick, it\u2019s easy to see how his version of the character stood the test of time. <\/span>Opposite Tobey Maguire\u2019s goofy Peter Parker, Dafoe brought Spidey\u2019s arch-nemesis to life with just the right balance of chilling and camp. We might have not got \u201cThe Night Gwen Stacy Died\u201d, but arguably, we got something even better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> Long before Earth\u2019s Mightiest Heroes were taking on Thanos, or even Tony Stark was facing Obadiah Stane, Sony wasn\u2019t worried about post-credit scenes and Easter eggs connecting to a wider world. The Raimiverse was its own entity that was simply set on entertaining.<\/span><\/p>\n Plans to get a Spider-Man movie off the ground had been struggling since the \u201890s, with James Cameron pitching his own take that would\u2019ve supposedly cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the wall-crawling hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Doctor Otto Octavius, and Kevin Spacey as Green Goblin. <\/span><\/p>\n While some of the script was salvaged for David Koepp\u2019s version, Raimi saved Doc Ock for Spider-Man 2 and let Green Goblin take centre stage. Like pitting Captain America against Red Skull or Black Panther against Killmonger, Green Goblin was an easy sell for Spidey\u2019s first outing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Decades ahead of Multiverse of Madness pitching itself as the MCU\u2019s first horror-hero hybrid, Raimi was doing what he does best in the 2002 Spidey movie. Green Goblin\u2019s metallic mask oozed horror \u2013 and even though it wouldn\u2019t have looked out of place in Power Rangers, it was a 21st century revamp of his cartoonish (and hardly intimidating) look from the comics.<\/span><\/p>\n Although most think of Spider-Man 2\u2019s tentacle surgery scene as Raimi\u2019s nod to his earlier horror work, the first Spider-Man was nothing if not full of the director\u2019s familiar flourishes. Dafoe\u2019s double duty as Osborn and Green Goblin gives similar vibes to Bruce Campbell as Ash\/Evil Ash in Evil Dead 2, and although names like John Malkovich and Jim Carrey were once in the mix for the role, it\u2019s hard to imagine someone other than Dafoe squeezing into the green battlesuit.<\/span><\/p>\n Decades before Oscar Isaac won plaudits for switching between characters in Moon Knight, Dafoe was a master at flipping between the sometimes sympathetic Norman and the chaos of the Green Goblin. The star himself said that filming Spider-Man\u2019s penthouse scene \u2013 where we first got a sense of Osborn losing his sanity \u2013 was one of his favourites, and fans were reminded of this dual performance more recently in the smash-hit multiversal adventure Spider-Man: No Way Home.<\/span><\/p>\n Two decades after Norm was impaled by his own glider, Dafoe was back in action and once again on fine form. In fact, the 66-year-old only agreed to return to face Tom Holland\u2019s webhead if he could do his own stunts. Director Jon Watts might have ditched the classic Goblin costume, but even as an older man in a purple hoodie Norman still cut an imposing figure.<\/span><\/p>\n Arriving as a sympathetic and dishevelled Osborn who\u2019d been displaced from his own reality, audiences quickly realised the Green Goblin was still bubbling beneath the surface. More Jekyll and Hyde than his previous appearance, we even saw Osborn try to smash the Goblin mask to free himself from the villain\u2019s tormenting grip.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Holland\u2019s \u2018Home\u2019 trilogy has pulled off great twists before (Liz\u2019s dad! Mysterio!), but the now-iconic condo scene \u2013 where Gobby smashed the MCU Spidey through various walls and floors and inspired a revolt by his fellow baddies \u2013 also included a villainous act <\/span>Osborn didn\u2019t manage with Rosemary Harris\u2019 Aunt May in 2002.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/12\/Green-Goblin-No-Way-Home-a6cc546.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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