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Marisa Tomei Is Aunt May in New “Spider-Man” Movie and the Internet Is Confused

She’s far too young and far “too hot” for the role

Jul 9, 2015 13:37 GMT  ·  By
Marisa Tomei is Aunt May in the 2017 “Spider-Man” movie from Marvel
   Marisa Tomei is Aunt May in the 2017 “Spider-Man” movie from Marvel

Marvel is rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after obtaining the rights for it from Sony Pictures, with a standalone pic in 2017. That means that the two new “Amazing Spider-Man” movies won’t be getting a third one as promised, with Andrew Garfield.

The new Spider-Man is a young man whose name you probably don’t know yet, but who’s shown great promise both on the stage and on the big screen. His name is Tom Holland and he’s only 19 years old.

That’s the only way anyone can make sense of Marvel’s decision to cast Marisa Tomei as Peter Parker’s old aunt, Aunt May.

Marisa is too young, too hot for the role

Holland may be young, but Garfield made for a convincing teenager as well, even though he’s 31. His Aunt May was Sally Field, who was 66 years old when Sony rebooted the franchise in 2012.

Before that, Aunt May was played by Rosemary Harris, who was 74 in the 2002 film. Marisa is 50 years old.

If you think you see a pattern there, you’re not wrong: Hollywood continues to pick younger actresses for older roles, in a move that is at least baffling if you consider that, just recently, Maggie Gyllenhaal (37) revealed she was told she was “too old” to play the girlfriend of an older gentleman.

Right now, the Internet is confused: in the comics, Aunt May is an old woman who looks her age. Marisa has nothing in common with that image, even if they do decide to add prosthetics and makeup on her to make her appear older, in which case, casting a woman as young as her was pointless in the first place.

As one of the many comments on Twitter on the topic notes, if they keep this up, by 2025, Aunt May will be played by an actress in her 30s. Now, that would be terribly wrong!

New Spider-Man is around the corner

As noted above, the new Spider-Man will make his debut in the summer of 2017, in his first standalone pic.

With this deal with Sony, Marvel will incorporate the webslinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), joining the Avengers.

In fact, fans won’t even have to wait until 2017 to see Holland in the iconic role, because his Spider-Man will be introduced first via a cameo in “Captain America: Civil War,” in May 2016. This movie is a continuation of “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and will see Captain America face off against Iron Man after a falling out on the topic of a superhero’s mission on Earth.

Whether Spider-Man will actually join in on the action or will only get a spot on the now-famous Marvel post-credits is unknown as of the time of writing.