10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Green Goblin

9. Their Portrayal In The Amazing Spider-Man Films

Amazing Spider Man 2 Dane Dehaan Green Goblin
Sony Pictures

Willem Defoe and James Franco's Goblins? Iconic. Chris Cooper and Dane DeHaan's? Well... not so much.

Sony's Amazing Spider-Man films tend to get a bad rap from fans for a whole host of reasons, perhaps even unfairly. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone's chemistry as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy respectively managed to anchor both of Marc Webb's films tremendously, but even though that was the case, they couldn't distract from the reboot's dearth of interesting antagonists.

This became particularly noticeable in Amazing Spider-Man 2, which featured Rhino, Electro and Goblin as its main villains. This time, Goblin was portrayed by DeHaan, who was this universe's Harry. Father Norman, played by Cooper, was bed-ridden by a genetic illness.

Deviating from the source-material should never be discouraged, but the way it was done in Webb's films was so bizarre. There was no mutant Goblin taken from the Ultimate comics, and audiences were ultimately left with Harry snarling at the camera decked out in weird, vomit-looking makeup.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.