It was announced by Columbia Pictures that Jamie Foxx will indeed play the character in the second film of the Mark Webb reboot starring Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man.
“Electro is a great character,” Jamie told “Entertainment Tonight’s” Nancy O’Dell as he revealed the role. “I met with the director, Mark Webb, I met with Andrew Garfield, and we talked. … I think Electro will be an exciting character to play because he’s a … genius electrician-type person, and he gets the short end of the stick from the whole world, and the next thing you know he turns it on.”
Marvel describes Electro as such: “After being convinced by his mother that he was not smart enough to pursue such a career, Max [Dillon, the character’s real name] instead reluctantly took a job as a lineman for an electric company. While repairing a power line still connected to its spool, Max was struck by lightning. Instead of being killed, the freak accident caused a mutagenic change in his nervous system, allowing him to generate and control vast amounts of electricity.