So much for all the blather early this year about Sony’s new Spider-Man reboot ditching the core concept of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson’s love story: it would seem that Andrew Garfield’s nerdy school lad will indeed aim to win the heart of the girl next door. And according the latest Deadline story on the movie, that girl will be Emma Stone.

While nothing is yet official, Stone has been recently at the forefront of the Spidey casting rumours and is apparently now mulling over a solid offer from Sony to play Mary Jane Watson. Oh, and interesting trivia note: while she’s been seen as a redhead these last few years, Stone has in fact been dipping into the red hair dye following a suggestion from Superbad producer Judd Apatow and liking the results. She’s gone for something closer to her natural strawberry blonde hair for her latest role in DreamWorks’ The Help, but at least she’d look more natural as the flame-haired MJ than Kirsten Dunst ever did.

And what of the other names who have been bandied about, including Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska, Glee’s Dianna Agron, Road Kill’s Georgina Haig and Moon’s Dominique McElligott? Well, there’s still apparently the other plum female role of Gwen Stacey to consider, though we’re sure Sony will keep widening the net for that one.

Other recent Spider-rumours have Philip Seymour Hoffman being courted for an unconfirmed role and Venom being considered as making a return to the franchise. To which we say, in order: hell yes and no, ta.

Marc Webb is the man behind the camera for this one, bringing James Vanderbilt (and no doubt Alvin Sargent and many more)’s words to the screen, with shooting set to start in December and a July 2012 release date fast approaching.