Is Canuck Colm Feore playing baddie Norman Osborn in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2′?

All the pieces seem to be "swinging" into place for director Marc Webb's wall-crawling sequel to last year's "The Amazing Spider-Man."

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone will reprise the roles of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy in the disappointingly plain-titled "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," and will be joined by the heavy duty acting talents of Oscar winner Jamie Foxx ("Django Unchained"), as well as Oscar nominees Paul Giamatti ("John Dies at the End") and Shailene Woodley ("The Descendants"). Foxx and Giamatti are set to play classic Spider-Man villains Electro and Rhino, respectively, while Woodley will play Mary Jane Watson, Parker's on-again, off-again love interest. Look out, Gwen Stacy!

See also: James Franco was not impressed by 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

But recently another talented thespian was quietly added to the web-slinging mix: Canadian stage and screen actor Colm Feore ("The Chronicles of Riddick," "Bon Cop, Bad Cop," "Thor"). Earlier today, Sony detailed the players and plot of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" by releasing the film's official cast list and synopsis.

While the cast list does mention Feore's participation in the comic book movie, it fails to specify which role the actor will be filling. Could he be playing an oft-mentioned but never seen character from the first film?

Industrialist Norman Osborn and his company Oscorp figured heavily into the plot of "The Amazing Spider-Man." Parker's presumed dead father was once an employee of the company, and experiments undertaken by the biotech firm are responsible for transforming the teen -- as well as Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) -- into superpowered beings. Osborn is mentioned quite often during the film (and is also said to be terminally ill), but never actually makes an appearance beyond a fleetingly seen silhouette on an Oscorp billboard. Fans have speculated that the shadowy figure glimpsed in the film's post-credit sequence is Osborn, but Webb and the actors have remained coy about the mysterious man's identity.

So why is Feore likely playing Osborn in the sequel?

The Boston-born Feore has flirted with Hollywood over the past decade, working steadily in film and television on both sides of the 49th parallel since the early 2000s. While he tends to play good guys in Canadian productions (like musicians, detectives, and even former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau), south of the border Feore has consistently been cast as a villain. He's played heavies in the Jack Ryan thriller "The Sum of All Fears," the sci-fi actioner "The Chronicles of Riddick," and most recently in Marvel's cosmic superhero adventure "Thor," as the Frost Giant king Laufey. Feore's long list of Hollywood baddie credits would make him a natural choice for a villain like Norman Osborn.

But there are other factors that seem to support the Feore as Osborn theory. For one, the actor resembles the comic book depiction of the character even more than previous Osborn actor Willem Dafoe did. He even shares Osborn's distinctive receding hairline! Add to that Feore's more than passing resemblance to actor Dane DeHaan (who is set to play Osborn's son Harry in the sequel) and it's pretty easy to make the case. The fact that Sony seems to have gone out of the way to not mention the name of the character Feore is likely playing -- coincidentally one of the biggest mysteries of the previous film -- is also fairly telling.

See also: 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' finds its Harry Osborn

With the already villain-packed sequel set to feature both Electro and Rhino as foes for Spider-Man, it's unlikely that we'll see Feore's character suit up as the Green Goblin this time out. But given the tragic comic book history that Parker's main squeeze Gwen Stacy (Stone) shares with the recurring Spidey villain, audiences can probably count on director Webb at least laying the groundwork for a future Gobbie appearance.

"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is scheduled for a May 4, 2014 release.