After months of torturous rumors and speculation over who would star in the latest Spider-Man reboot, Sony and Marvel finally settled on a kid named Tom Holland to be the new webslinger. Holland is a bit of a youngster compared to the fossils who played Peter Parker before him—which makes sense, since this reboot is sending him back to school—but if he’s going to be younger, then his supporting cast has to be younger as well. At least that’s what we assume is the justification behind casting Marisa Tomei to be the new Aunt May (via Variety), because that seems pretty surprising on the surface.
In the comics, Aunt May is usually depicted as an elderly woman, but—like Spider-Man himself—she keeps getting younger and younger in these movies. A few reboots from now, Peter Parker will be played by a 13-year-old, and Aunt May will be a sexy twentysomething. Granted, Aunt May being super old in the comics doesn’t make a ton of sense either—since it means there must’ve been a big age difference between her and Peter’s parents—but the way things are done in the comics is the only way to do these things properly. That’s what the internet says, at least.
Holland’s Peter Parker is expected to show up in Captain America: Civil War, but Variety doesn’t think there’ll be any reason for Tomei’s Aunt May to appear until Spidey gets his own solo movie. That film—which will be directed by Cop Car’s Jon Watts—won’t be in theaters until 2017, so we’ve got a few years to prepare ourselves before we see Marisa Tomei playing Spider-Man’s elderly aunt.