Once upon a time, films – and particularly superhero outings – used to do their casting in secret, with no leaks until the big announcement. No more! Now we get the steady drop of rumour and the rush of possibilities. The latest film afflicted with leaky castingitis is Sony’s Spider-Man reboot, which, according to the Heat Vision Blog, has assembled a list of possible love interests for Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker.
On the list? So far, we have 4.3.2.1’s Emma Roberts, who has apparently flown in twice from shooting Scream 4 to read scenes, fellow 4.3.2.1 actress Ophelia Lovibond, The Blind Side’s Lily Collins, Centurion’s Imogen Poots and Teresa Palmer, last seen in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. And they’re just a small tip of the iceberg in terms of likely names. Others have already dropped out of the running, including **Scott Pilgrim’**s Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
The most interesting part here isn’t the name of the actress who will end up in the film, it’s the character she will be playing. Apparently, Sony is throwing Mary Jane Watson to the scrap heap and going with other possible Spidey love interests, including Gwen Stacey and Felicia Hardy. Though given that the Marc Webb film will be based on Parker in high school, we’d guess the studio’s other possible option – a new character – might make more sense, since neither of those two popped up during Peter’s school days. To keep agents, actresses and the rest of us guessing, no names are being handed out during interviews and tests.
Of course, the final storyline won’t be known until Sony releases some more info (or it gets out regardless), but here’s the question based on what we know so far: what do you think of the news? Outraged that Mary Jane may not make an appearance, or at least won’t get to be part of the traditional Parker/Watson narrative? Or pleased that Webb and co are headed in a different direction?