REPORT: Asa Butterfield Is the Frontrunner for SPIDER-MAN Reboot

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios are closing in on the actor who will follow in the webbed footsteps of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. Latino-Review reported on Tuesday that Ender's Game star Asa Butterfield is the frontrunner to land the role in the upcoming reboot of the franchise.

Butterfield's name was among five frontrunners reported last week, and according to Latino-Review, the actor may have even already won the role. "Marvel had liked him since day one," a source told the site. It wouldn't be a surprise if Sony and Marvel had already locked Butterfield in as Spider-Man. The webslinger is expected to have a small role in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, which began filming this week.

Like many of the names rumored to be in the running for the new Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man, Butterfield is much younger than Maguire and Garfield were when they won the role for their franchises. Marvel Studios has made it clear that they're going to make Peter Parker a high school student again and keep the character in that period for awhile, including in the upcoming standalone Spider-Man movie (possibly titled Spider-Man: The New Avenger) that's set to hit theaters on July 28, 2017.

Butterfield has one of the longer résumés of the many contenders for the new Spider-Man movie. He was in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning Hugo and the cinematic adaption of Ender's Game. Butterfield has the acting chops to play a kid just breaking into the world of superheroes against giant personalities like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and Chris Evans' Captain America.