Campbell Scott, who most recently has been playing reclusive billionaire Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz  (just Boris, usually) on USA’s Royal Pains is going to be Peter Parker’s dad in the new Spiderman film, alongside Julianne Nicholson (who I’ve never seen but is supposedly on Law and Order: SVU) as Peter Parker’s mom.  With this casting news, we can only conclude that this smells like an origin story.  (Ugh)

In other news, Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) will play an unknown spidey villain named Van Atter.  Good actor, but who the F#$% is Van Atter?

In my opinion, this is strike 2 against the Spiderman reboot.  Strike 1 is the casting, skewing young, meaning we might be going back to high school with Peter Parker, and casting good actors (Martin Sheen and now Campbell Scott) to play dead people.  Strike 2 is Van Atter.  You’re already trying to sell people on this new Spiderman, and instead of ANY of the well-known and POPULAR rogue’s gallery that makes Spiderman so fun, you have some guy named Van Atter.

We’d better start seeing some plot details spill soon, because there are lots of impatient and skeptical geeks out there ready to crap all over this thing.

And if you don’t believe me, just look at Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark and the angry buzz surrounding that.