Yesterday we ran an article about Josh Hutcherson being cast as Spider-Man. This was approximately the nine-hundred-millionth article HeyUGuys have run on the next Spider-Man film, and yet again it proved not to be true.
While Hutchinson may yet end up joining the Marvel universe, it won’t be as Peter Parker*, as Sony themselves have announced via Twitter that Andrew Garfield will be donning the Spider-spandex come the start of principal photography this summer (and Craig has reported as such here).
Like most of the other candidates, Garfield has pedigree, with roles in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Lions For Lambs and The Red Riding Trilogy, and given that the man has a BAFTA, he’ll clearly be able to cope with the part. He’s even half-British. Not sure what relevance that is, but I’m sure the tabloids will be fascinated by it.
What is curious, though is that he’s also barely a month short of his 27th birthday. This makes him by far the oldest of the candidates linked to the role, and incidentally, the same age Tobey Macguire was when he played Spider-Man in the first film.
Given that Sony seemed to be planning a series of films set around the younger, high-school age Peter Parker, it seems utterly bizarre to cast an actor who will probably be thirty by the time they get round to shooting the sequel. It also has interesting implications when it comes to the supporting cast. For a long time I’ve had an utterly unfounded pet theory that Emma Roberts would get the nod to play Mary Jane. There’s not a shred of evidence to support this, but given that she can make even the worst films watchable, she seemed like a shoe-in for the role.
The casting of Garfield, who is eight years her senior, sort of puts paid to that theory however, so now my money is on slightly older hot ginger Emma Stone. Again, there’s bugger all to prove this hunch, but there are also a finite number of pretty red-heads in Hollywood, and most of them would have trouble passing for sixteen.
We’ll discover whether Spider-Garfield works out in a couple of years time, although at the time of writing, the internet (well, twitter, at least) seems pretty happy with the choice. One thing’s for sure though – it’s pretty safe to assume a new reboot, with yet another, younger actor in about six years time at the most.
*Unless his name comes up after the next Spider-reboot
