Marvel has a big year on the big screen for 2017, with no less than three massive blockbusters. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 kicks off the summer season in May, and the year will wrap up with Thor: Ragnarok in November, but for many Marvel fans, the biggest movie of the year is going to be Spider-Man: Homecoming in July. Although the wall-crawler officially made his MCU debut in Captain America: Civil War, this will be Spidey's first solo movie within the larger Marvel universe, which is absolutely huge. We'll be meeting some new characters, as well as seeing old favorites like Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) join Tom Holland on the big screen.

One character who has also made a brief MCU cameo already is the newest version of Aunt May, Peter Parker's parent-figure, played by Marisa Tomei. This casting was quite a shock to comic fans, used to seeing an elderly May in the books (and in previous live-action films), and May's age may well come up again in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Now Tomei herself has revealed that she also "made a case" for her character to be older in the movie.

Tomei was a guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert where she unsurprisingly talked about her role in the upcoming film. In the interview, host Colbert holds up an image of Aunt May from the comics, and asks about the age difference. Tomei laughs and says:

You can imagine my horror when I was cast and started doing the research! But then I thought 'I'm just going to go with it' and I actually made a case to age me up, but no, they didn't do it.

Spider-Man Aunt May

While Tomei is obviously joking about her horror at being cast as an elderly woman, she is serious when talking about her pitch to be aged up for the films. Of course, had the MCU wanted an older Aunt May, it would have been significantly easier to simply cast an older woman, so it's not too surprising to hear that they shot the idea down. Still, it's nice to hear that Tomei was open to doing something to bring her more in line with the comic inspiration for her character.

While purists are never going to be happy with such a young version of an iconic character like Aunt May, Marvel has a fantastic track record with characters, and there is little doubt that they will be able to make this new version of May work for the MCU. There's more to look forward to as May does some light flirting with Tony Stark, which will be a lot of fun, and it also adds a new dynamic to the May/Peter relationship which will be interesting to see.

Next: Why Spider-Man’s Homemade Suit is Important to Homecoming

Source: The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

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