Had Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 happened, we'd have seen Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker do battle with John Malkovich's Vulture. Instead, when Marvel Studios rebooted the web-slinger, it was former Batman Michael Keaton who donned the villain's wings in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Rather than returning in Spider-Man: No Way Home - which was the original plan - Keaton reprised his role as The Vulture in Morbius. After mistakenly being sent to that world, a surprisingly calm Toomes was freed from prison and later attempted to recruit the Living Vampire to a team of some sort.
It remains one of the worst comic book movie post-credits scenes ever but could the actor show up as Adrian Toomes in the upcoming Spider-Man 4?
"Oh, wow. That's an interesting character, that guy," Keaton responded when Screen Rant asked the question. "Actually, I was there for a minute in the second one. That really was fun experience, but I haven't talked to anybody about anything. [In a joking tone] I try not to talk to anybody. I really don't like people."
It's unclear what Keaton means by "the second one," though he may be referring to either Spider-Man: Far From Home or Spider-Man: No Way Home. Either way, we don't necessarily expect there to be room for The Vulture based on what we know about Spider-Man 4.
In an earlier version of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter was going to visit Toomes' home with Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, and Electro in tow. Concept art has shown Spidey seemingly teaming up with the villain, while we've also seen a few different versions of his updated flight suit.
Earlier this year, John Leguizamo elaborated on being replaced as The Vulture at the last minute by Keaton. As you can probably imagine, the actor wasn't exactly overjoyed about being pushed out of the movie.
"I hadn’t signed a contract, but we had agreed. I think those are suable terms," he recalled. "The head of the studio called me up and said, ‘This is terrible. I feel horrible, and would you give it up?’ And I did," he continued. "I felt like, if you didn’t want me, I don’t want to be there either, you know what I mean?"
"My grandma was like, 'If they don’t want you at a party, don’t go.' So I was like, you don’t want me at the party. I don’t want to be there. I felt dissed and diminished, so I didn’t really want to be a part of it."
Would you like to see more of Keaton's Vulture in the MCU?