Report: Marisa Tomei Will Be Aunt May In Spider-Man Reboot

By Nick Tylwalk | Jul 8, 2015

UPDATE 7/8 3:21 pm: The Hollywood Reporter echoes the Variety report about Marisa Tomei and the Aunt May role but states that she could make her first appearance in Captain America: Civil War, along with Tom Holland as Peter Parker. Our original post follows.

Peter Parker’s dear old Aunt May is unquestionably one of the most famous supporting characters in comic book history. She’s been a cause for Peter to worry, an occasional target of Spider-Man’s foes and even a potential love interest for Doctor Octopus at times. One thing she’s never been is a woman in her early 50s, but she just might be in the upcoming Marvel/Sony Spider-Man reboot.

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At least she will be if Variety is correct, because the trade reported today that its sources say Marisa Tomei will play Aunt May. The Academy Award-winning actress will turn just 51 this coming December, making her decades younger than her character is normally portrayed in comics.

If Tomei accepts the role, she’ll be the third actress to play Aunt May in movies, each one younger than her predecessor. Rosemary Harris was 74 when the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man film hit theaters, while Sally Field was 65 when she first took on the May Parker mantle in The Amazing Spider-Man.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a younger aunt in the picture, though concerns about her frail health are a time-honored Spider-Man comic book tradition. If the actor picked to play Uncle Ben is around the same age, it could add a whole new level of emotion to his inevitable demise since he’ll be taken from May and Peter even earlier in his life.

As Variety indicates, we aren’t likely to see Tomei on screen until the new Spider-Man movie releases on July 28, 2017.

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