Andrew Garfield Confirmed as Next Spider-Man

British-born actor Andrew Garfield has been confirmed to be the next Spider-Man. This quashes those Josh Hutcherson rumors from a few days before, and also means that fan favorite Donald Glover will have to look on.

Garfield has had a few roles in the past — he was in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Other Boleyn Girl, and he’s taken a few turns on UK television. But according to Sony Pictures’ press release, he flashed on Sony’s and Columbia’s radar thanks to his performance in unreleased film The Social Network, of all things:Sony:

Commenting on the announcement, 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.”

Andrew Garfield plays the original Facebook cofounder who Mark Zuckerberg supposedly ‘defrauded’, BTW.

Spider-Man’s director Mark Webb and its producers Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin sing the 26-year-old Garfield’s praises, as an actor and as a Spidey:

Webb: “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.”

Ziskin: “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 humor, youth, and pathos, along with an underlying sense of strength and power necessary to bring Peter Parker and Spider-Man to life on screen.”

Arad: “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.”

Though he’s more or less an unknown here, Andrew Garfield has a fairly good reputation as an actor in the UK, and for now, we’ll let that outweigh our fears that the studio is trying to whip up a Robert Pattinson clone, Twilight-style. Garfield and Pattinson are personal friends, and for a while, it had been rumored that R-Patz would get the role, which would have caused a hundred thousand male nerds to simultaneously an hero. So: We’ll see. But for the time being, congrats to Garfield on scoring the role. With great power comes great responsibility.

(via ComingSoon. h/t Gossip Cop)