Put all the speculation to a halt. We finally have visual, official confirmation of one of the villains Spider-man will go up against in Spider-Man 3.

The official Sony pictures Spider-Man website now has a Daily Bugle issue up as their front page, featuring a picture of Thomas Haden Church as “Flint Marko”. The costume is unmistakable though - this is The Sandman. Delving further into the site, into the villain profiles, reveals that The Sandman has used the alias Flint Marko previously.

So the movie is almost two years away (543 days, 16 hours, 15 minutes, and 52 seconds from the writing of this article according to the countdown clock on the official site) but this picture has me just as excited as I’ve been for the previous chapters. Sam Raimi has not let us down before and I have no reason to believe he will now. I can’t wait to see Spidey take on The Sandman, and whatever else might be coming in the future.