After much fervoured speculation and erroneous reports that everyone from Logan Lerman to Jamie Bell had already scored the role, Sony has announced that Andrew Garfield will play Peter Parker/Spider-man in their upcoming comic book reboot.
Of those shortlisted, he is perhaps a surprising choice, because while the new Marc Webb directed movie will take Spider-man back to the beginning of his story in high school, Garfield is 27, and one of the oldest of the people being considered for the part (although Tobey Maguire was exactly the same age when he got the role). However he’s also one of the most respected, even if he’s yet to become a household name. The American born but British raised actor has won several awards for his work on stage, as well as appearing in the Red Riding Trilogy and The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and the upcoming Never Let Me Go and The Social Network. It was apparently footage from the last of those, also made by Sony, as well as his screentest that landed him Spider-man.
And if you think these things are decided ages before they’re announced to the public, Garfield had flown to a Sony Media Summit in Cancun to help promote Social Network, but was pulled into a room, told he’d got the role and then almost immediately whisked on stage to be introduced to journalists as the new webslinger. And I think it’s fair to say he looked more than a little shellshocked.
Click below to take a look at the annoucement and Garfield seeming to have forgotten quite who he is.