Barely a week after the reset button was hit on the Spider-Man franchise the rumour mill has already swung into high gear.
Within a few days there was speculation that 500 Days of Summer’s Mark Webb was at the top of a list of directors Sony wanted for the film.
The following afternoon, Quiet Earth posted a tip from “an industry insider” that Nimród Antal was the man Sony wanted to helm the pic. That said, their source linked this to Sam Raimi’s relationship with Antal, so unless Raimi is being kept on as a producer, it’s unlikely to be true.
Now we’re beginning to hear actors names linked to the project as well.
The Hollywood News have drawn our attention to a tweet made by Noel Clarke, director of Adulthood, and the forthcoming 4.3.2.1, early yesterday morning. Clarke ‘re-tweeted’ a post by actor Arnold Oceng, also known by the rather apt, if ludicrous, name of ‘Snakey-Man’:
“Got inside track. jim sturgess has bin offerd the new spiderMan in spiderMan reboot, U knw I always get da inside scoop RT”
Jim Sturgess is a decent enough actor, and if he has been offered the part, HeyUGuys would like to be the first to congratulate him, but frankly, this sounds like complete and utter rubbish.
Remember late last year, when just about every actress under fifty was linked to the role of Felicia Hardy in the then Spider-Man 4? This is almost certainly the same thing. Sturgess probably has had a screen test, he might even have absolutely nailed it, but does anyone really think he’s going to be offered the part seven days after Tobey Maguire left the project? That barely gives them time to get him to LA for a proper audition. It also completely ignores the fact that the project has yet to line up a director. Even the most studio-friendly hack’s not going to be keen to sign on to a project AFTER his leading man has been cast.
It also completely ignores the idea of the rebooted Peter Parker being a hig school student. Sturgess is 31. At a push he might pass for a recent college graduate, but certainly not a schoolboy. Every indication is that Sony are going to skew Peter Parker young and there’s no way Sturgess would fit that mould.
Back in the real world, there was one possibly interesting, pseudo-development in the project last night, as MTV interviewed Mark Webb on the Golden Globes Red Carpet. When asked if he was talking with Sony about Spider-Man, Webb was evasive, even asking if it ‘was because of [his] name” that the line of questioning came up.
The thing is, it’s pretty safe to assume he IS talking to Sony. Deadline, the source of most of these rumours, is a pretty reliable site, and again, Sony are probably talking to a lot of directors. It would be nice to think that the deal has been sealed, particularly because he confessed to being a fan of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics in the interview, but we’ll probably have to wait a few weeks before finding out.
