Sony’s next Spider-Man movie (which most people now know will not be a sequel to the Spider-Man franchise created by The Evil Dead director Sam Raimi, but a complete reboot) is now moving along nicely, and has begun adding, and announcing, the film’s major cast members.
We’ve known for sometime than Andrew Garfield (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) would be replacing Seabiscuit’s Tobey Macguire as the web-slinging hero, Peter Parker; a 17-year-old high-school student who gets bitten by a radioactive spider, promptly develops superpowers that allow him to scale walls and fire spiderwebs from his hands, dons a red and blue costume, and goes out to fight crime under the pseudonym Spider-Man; but recently two other major cast members have been added; Rhys Ifans and Emma Stone.
Whilst there was widespread speculation that Zombieland’s Emma Stone would be playing the role of Mary Jane Watson (generally due to the rumours of her receiving a leading role, and the fact that she’s usually seen sporting red hair), Mary Jane won’t actually be making an appearance in the film, and Emma will instead be playing the part of Gwen Stacy; the blonde co-ed who was the comic-book hero’s first love.
Rhys Ifans however (who can still be seen in the Howard Marks biopic Mr Nice) has signed on to play the film’s villain, and while his presence has been officially confirmed, his exact role has not; because despite the fact that The Goblin played a role in Gwen’s sotryline in the comics, Sony are still keeping the majority of the plot (which has been written by Zodiac scribe James Vanderbilt), and the identity of the bad-guy, a closely guarded secret.
The reboot’s being directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) and will begin shooting in Los Angeles (with a much smaller budget than the previous films, despite the fact it’s coming in 3D) this December, giving the team plenty of time to polish up the effects in post-production, ahead of the release date; which is set for July 3rd 2012.
