Molina has expressed further interest in reprising the role in the in-development Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film based on The Sinister Six.

The character of Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus first appeared in print in The Amazing Spider-Man #3 (July 1963), and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko.

Otto Octavius was originally intended to be the secondary antagonist of Spider-Man (2002), but director Sam Raimi eventually dropped the concept in favor of spending more time with Harry and Norman Osborn.

When he injures two muggers on a date, this horrifies Mary Jane and in the resulting battle with Spider-Man his tentacles are fused together, and the fusion begins to kill him.

"[24] In December 2020, it was reported that Molina would reprise his role as the character in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), which is intended to be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Molina was digitally de-aged in the film to resemble how he appeared in 2004, despite his concerns about his fighting style not looking realistic due to his age in a similar way to Robert De Niro's character in The Irishman (2019).

[26] Otto Octavius is a brilliant nuclear physicist, a friend of Dr. Curt Connors, and a scientific idol of Peter Parker, who aims to write his college paper on him.

Years later, Osborn would become the Green Goblin after an experiment involving super-soldiers gone wrong and die while fighting Spider-Man; Octavius later attended his funeral.

Octavius creates an artificial sun with four mechanical tentacles controlled by a back-mounted harness and a neural inhibitor chip on his neck as part of a fusion reactor experiment using tritium.

To lure Spider-Man, Octavius kidnaps Mary Jane Watson and battles him atop an elevated train, which he sends careening out of control.

Octavius takes Spider-Man captive, delivers him to Harry, keeps Watson as a hostage, and begins another attempt at the fusion reactor experiment.

However, Spider-Man arrives to stop him and damages the arms, before revealing his identity as Parker, and reminding Octavius of how he believed intelligence should be used for good.

[d] Inspired by Parker's words, Octavius regains control of his arms and sacrifices his life to sink the fusion reactor into the East River.

In the alternate reality of Earth-616, during the year 2024, Dr. Stephen Strange casts a spell to restore the secret identity of his Peter Parker (dubbed "Peter-One") after it was revealed by Mysterio.

Believing Peter-One is his Spider-Man and that he did something with his fusion reactor, Octavius battles him and steals a piece of his nanotechnological Iron Spider suit, upgrading his arms.

Nonetheless, Peter-One and Osborn make a new inhibitor chip for him, as Spider-Man administrated it, which gives Octavius his humanity and control over his arms back.

[27] David Crow of Den of Geek calls Octavius "a megalomaniacal fiend" who, despite building four mechanical arms, is "still inexplicably searching for a creation that will justify his genius and get him worldwide acclaim."

Crow notes that the relationships Octavius has with his wife and Peter "give the accident which welds the mechanical arms to his spine and drives him insane some emotional weight.

[31] Den of Geek, Screen Rant, and Collider ranked Doc Ock as the greatest villain in the Spider-Man film franchise.

"[37] IGN's Richard George felt "Sam Raimi and his writing team delivered an iconic, compelling version of Spider-Man's classic foe... We almost wish there was a way to retroactively add some of these elements to the original character.