Another Spider-Man reboot is upon us, but with this new film resulting from a partnership between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures, it at least promises to be interesting from a business standpoint. Creatively, though, all involved seem keen on trying something different from what came before, which is a necessity given how drained audiences already feel on this one superhero. The key to that change appears to be in aging Peter Parker down, with Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige wanting from the outset to tell high school-set Spider-Man stories in an effort to explore an aspect of the character that’s only been glossed over on film.
This drove the casting process for the new movie, which eventually settled on 19-year-old Tom Holland to fill the Spidey suit and, not so coincidentally, act as a nice foil for the 30-and-over actors that populate the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And as development on the new film ramps up to begin shooting next summer, screenwriters Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley as well as director Jon Watts are honing in on exactly the Peter Parker that will grace the screen in this new untitled reboot.
In speaking with Empire Magazine (via Yahoo! UK), Watts spoke briefly about avoiding rehashing the Spider-Man origin story (something Goldstein and Daley previously reiterated) and dropped one significant nugget of news: Peter Parker’s age:
“There are only so many times you can kill Uncle Ben… I love the idea of making a coming-of-age high-school movie. We’re really going to see Peter Parker in high school and get deeper into that side of it. He’s just 15 now.”
So again, the high school setting and John Hughes tone are things that Feige and Co. have touched on before, but this is the first confirmation we have that Peter Parker will be 15-years-old in the new film. We’ll get our first look at Holland in costume in next April’s Captain America: Civil War, followed by the untitled Spider-Man reboot on July 28, 2017.
