Say bye to Tobey Maguire and hi to Andrew Garfield

What’s all the fuss about?

It’s about our fave superhero Spider-Man. In his first three outings, it was Tobey Maguire who had played Peter Parker. After things didn’t work out between Sony and Tobey for the fourth instalment, the studio decided to go for an all-new actor to play Spidey.

After a comprehensive worldwide casting search, Andrew Garfield has been chosen to portray Peter Parker when Spider-Man swings back onto the screen in 3D on July 3, 2012. The new film will begin production early December, 2010. The crew has also been finalised. Directed by Marc Webb with screenplay by James Vanderbilt, the film will be produced by Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad of Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios.

The confirmation of Garfield concludes one of the most eagerly anticipated casting announcements in recent memory. Bloggers, pop culture speculators, and everyday fans have pored over and analysed every conceivable online rumour in an attempt to discover the identity of the next actor to play Peter Parker.

After all, the Spider-Man franchise is one of the most successful in film history and the three previous motion pictures have collectively grossed more than $2.5 billion in worldwide box office.

Who’s Andrew Garfield?

The 26-year-old most recently worked with Se7en director David Fincher on the upcoming film The Social Network. He previously starred for Spike Jonze on his robot love story I’m Here, which premiered at Sundance this year. He plays the lead male opposite Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, due for release later this year.

Other notable screen credits include Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus playing opposite Christopher Plummer, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law and the late Heath Ledger; Robert Redford’s Lions For Lambs, where he starred alongside Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep; Revolution Films’ Red Riding Trilogy — 1974 directed by Julian Jarrold, where he leads a stellar cast including Rebecca Hall and David Morrissey, and his unforgettable portrayal of a young ex-con in John Crowley’s Boy A, for which he earned the best actor BAFTA in 2008.

Garfield’s career began in theatre and in 2006 his performances in Beautiful Thing, The Overwhelming, and Burn /Chatroom/Citizenship (Royal National Theatre) won him the Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer at the Evening Standard awards and the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics Circle Theatre Awards. Other notable theatre credits include Romeo and Juliet and Kes (Manchester Royal Exchange), for which he received the Most Promising Newcomer Award at the Manchester Evening News Awards 2004.

Why was he picked?

On selecting Garfield, director Marc Webb said: “Though his name may be new to many, those who know this young actor’s work understand his extraordinary talents. He has a rare combination of intelligence, wit and humanity. Mark my words, you will love Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker.”

Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Matt Tolmach, president of Columbia Pictures said: “Spider-Man is a classic superhero — a young man who balances his responsibility to serve humanity and crush evil with the shyness and normalcy of someone struggling to find himself. The role demands an extraordinary actor. You need someone who can magically transform himself from Peter Parker into Spider-Man. An actor who will depict the vulnerability of youth and the strength and confidence of a legendary figure at the same moment. We have found that actor in Andrew Garfield. From the first time we saw him in the upcoming film The Social Network, to his glorious screen test, which floored all of us, we knew that we had found our new Peter Parker.”

Producer Avi Arad added: “I’m incredibly excited about Andrew Garfield. In the Spider-Man tradition, we were looking for a smart, sensitive and cool new Peter Parker who can inspire us and make us laugh, cry, and cheer. We believe we have found the perfect choice to take on this role and lead us into the future.”

Co-producer Laura Ziskin said: “We are thrilled to have Andrew Garfield for this new incarnation of Spider-Man under Marc Webb’s direction. We were fortunate enough to meet with a group of fantastically talented young men. In the end, we all agreed that in addition to being an extraordinary actor, Andrew had the right mix of humour, youth, and pathos, along with an underlying sense of strength and power necessary to bring Peter Parker and Spider-Man to life on screen.”