Percy Jackson Star in Talks to Headline Spider-Man Reboot (or Not)
Posted 02.05.10 by BrentJS
Who will wear the mask?
The January 11th news that Sony was scrapping Spider-Man 4 and rebooting the franchise following the departure of director Sam Raimi took nearly everyone by surprise. Even the title star of all three movies, Tobey Maguire, had updated the status of Spider-Man 4 only a few days before saying, "It's all happening right now. It's all sort of coming together."
In the wake of the news, numerous casting rumors have come bubbling up from the depths of the Internet. So far, none of them have proven to be credible. The latest news, coming out of an interview Billy Bush conducted with Logan Lerman for Access Hollywood, has the star of the upcoming movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in talks for the lead role of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, in the rebooted franchise.
There have been a few discussions, it's definitely something I'm looking into.
It's just, you know, conversations are starting. It's a long process with the studio and the producers and everything. But it's definitely a project that I'm really interested in, of course. I'd love to focus on the human element a little bit more. It'd be such a fun experience.
Casting the 18-year-old in the lead seems to fit with Sony's decision to take the franchise back to Spider-Man's origin as a geeky high school student who initially abuses his new powers. However, no sooner had the Lerman story broke than popular comic book movie blog HeatVision attempted to debunk the news.
While a "wide net" is being cast, according to a studio spokesman, "No offers have been made, nor have any business discussions been made with Lerman."
The actor's camp also confirms no business discussions are being held at this time.
Admittedly, it does seem unlikely that the star of one burgeoning franchise would be offered the lead role in another. Then again, if it works for Ryan Reynolds with his Deadpool and Green Lantern roles, perhaps Lerman could do the same with Percy Jackson and Spider-Man.