Same here…. I can’t see how Venom would make any sense at all. He also doesn’t mix with what we know of Raimi's sensibilities about Spider-man, which is evident in the direction he has taken the movies this far and in what he says about the character.

It just doesn’t seem like a villain Sam would choose for his movies, but Electro makes sense on so many levels.

But you are right I bet Church could also play Brock as well, I just really hope not ;)

If he goes with Venom I will be “shocked”. I'd rather be electro-cuted though.

I agree that would be great as well, but It could be pretty complex although then again maybe not that complex if you consider they accomplished Doc Ock amazingly.

A Mysterio storyline might be complex however, mainly due to all the possibilities of his abilities.

I have heard that Church might be sandman and although I can live with that, I think Electro, or heck even Mysterio, would be much more visually stunning.

I would like to see multiple villains. I think it makes sense. It's hard to top Doc Ock with just one villain which is why at least a couple as a team would be nice.

Sandman and Electro would be a good pare...could even throw in Shocker or The Vulture. I would love to see The Vulture up there,

I think a great move would be to have one of these classic villains have just a small scene where they are stopped while committing a crime. Maybe right off the bat at the beginning a quick battle with the Vulture or shocker.

I don’t think we will see ManWolf at all... he wasn’t really a pivotal character in the books and really just wouldn’t make sense in the store.

We might see some progression in the Harry as Green Goblin, but I wouldn’t expect too much.

I am not sure how Rami could make the Lizard interesting enough to devot major screen time to telling his story. It could be short and simple but would it warrant the screen time from the rest of the movie?

I do think an all out show down of villains for this or maybe the third film would be spectacular in line with the other two movies and really capture an ongoing element to the mythology of the books. Spiderman fights against multiple or gangs of villains quite often even in the classic books.

But Raimi is a traditionalist when it comes to Spiderman so it would be very odd for him to choose a character that only exists because spidey needed a new suit during the Secret Wars, and so while in space the hulk told him he managed to get a new pair of pants from an alien machine so spidey went and had the machine make him a new suit that turned out to be an alien.

And the lame character "Venom" was later born; dang it would be a horrible choice and completely unlike what Raimi has done with these movies.

But who knows....I just really hope not...if he goes with "Venom" I can see this being the end of the Spiderman movies...jump the shark indeed.

Also I don't think Rami would use a Spiderman cartoon as reference for a Spiderman story.

He clearly bases his movies on the books and has been quoted as saying he is a "Classic" Spiderman fan and that the classic stories are his reference.

Besides all that Aint it cool news has posted this back in March:

Multiple spies at Sony have confirmed that Thomas Hayden Church will indeed be playing SANDMAN. There's a ton of Sandman conceptual art all over the Spidey-offices!

For me it was between Elecro and Sandman. Looks like Sandman might have won.

Yeah it would be nice but realistically they could only do characters that Sony has access to or that don’t already have a license to another studio. Fantastic Four would work but there is no doubt it would probably never happen. (we did almost see a Daredevil cameo in the movie Elektra though)

A cameo of the human touch would be a really good idea though; at least a fly by. It would add a sense a “Marvel Universe”. Marvel comics are all about characters interacting across stories and crossovers were very common.

I imagine they have picked Sandman though which will be great, but we will see.

Electro or Sandman are both excellent choices.

That sounds like a dream then.

How did you come across this info or is it a guess?

I was thinking along these same lines but it was a guess.