They were very good at being bad.
At the dawn of the "Spider-Man” film franchise in 2002, Willem Dafoe, the acclaimed actor of movies like "Shadow of the Vampire” and "The Last Temptation of Christ,” inaugurated the superhero series with a credible, formidable villain, Norman Osborn — otherwise known as the Green Goblin.
Two years later, Alfred Molina, the distinguished star of film ("Frida,” "Boogie Nights”) and theater ("Art”), donned the mechanical tentacles of the nefarious Otto Octavius — aka Doctor Octopus — for a sequel, "Spider-Man 2.”