Martin Sheen gets his Aunt May, it seems...

You have to admit that Marc Webb is casting pretty high for the secondary parts in his Spider-Man reboot. Yesterday's announcement that Martin Sheen is closing in on the role of Uncle Ben is followed today by a similar announcement regarding Sally Field for the complementary role of Aunt May (and one that is far likelier to survive the series).

Brit actress Rosemary Harris was excellent in the part in the 2001-06 movies, though bearing little resemblance to the strangely witch-like figure of the traditional comics. I'm a huge fan of Sally Field, but I worry as to the reasons why they are casting her, as her glittering 70s career seemed to be followed with decades of soap-style movies of the week, only lightly interspersed with film projects. Starting out with a career-making performance as schizophrenic Sybil opposite Joanne Woodward in 1976, Fields is probably still best known among her 70s work for pairing up with Burt Reynolds in 1977's high-grossing road-romp Smokey And The Bandit. The more sentimental fare of Mrs. Doubtfire and Steel Magnolias typifies the direction she chose to go in later, and the kind of role that she's now best-associated with. It's easy to go over the top with angelic spiritual advisor figures in superhero movies...

Anyway, in my opinion there's no piece of casting more critical than that of J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker's irascible 30s-style editor, played to absolute perfection by J. K. Simmons in the Raimi years. Frankly, they should just bring Simmons back and to hell with it.

Filmonic

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