The latest QuarantineWatchParty hosted by Comicbook.com featured Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Executive Producers Chris Miller and Phil Lord, along with Co-Director and Writer Rodney Rothman, participated in the event to answer questions fans had about the movie or just to provide some general insight.
Rothman contributed the latter when discussing Spider-Verse's Doc Ock. Most comic books depict the character as a man named Otto Octavious, but the film decided to make the character a female by the name of Olivia Octavious instead.
Rothman explained to fans the reason this happened. According to him, his co-director, Bob Persichetti, was friends with Olivia's voice actor, Kathryn Hahn, through their kids. So he pitched the idea of making Otto a girl. The early drafts of the script still had male Doctor Octopu s, one that was a "Big Lebowski type dude."
Persichetti's decision ultimately turned out to be a good one. Spider-Verse's reveal of Olivia as Earth 1610's version of Doctor Octopus was one of the movie's highlights. The twist worked well because it played off the movie's dimension-hopping plotline, and thus made the genderswap believable, and not something that felt like it was done on a whim — even if it was.
Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse is available now on digital, Blu-Ray, DVD, and Netflix.