The casting of the female lead in the Spider-Man reboot is generating almost as much heat as the laborious process that ended when Andrew Garfield was chosen to play the young Peter Parker.  Reports from Tinseltown indicate that director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) and Garfield are meeting with a group of at least five actresses, one of whom will likely end up playing Spidey’s love interest.

Only the winner won’t be portraying Mary Jane Watson—according to The Hollywood Reporter, MJ is definitely not the female lead in the new Spider-Man movie, and it might not be Gwen Stacy either—the script pages given to the actresses have no name listed for the character.

According to the Reporter’s Heat Vision blog, the five actresses include Emma Roberts, who has reportedly flown in twice from the location of Scream 4 to read for the role, Imogen Poots (Fright Night), Teresa Palmer (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), Lily Collins (Priest), and Ophelia Lovibond (Nowhere Boy).

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who has the female lead in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, was in contention, but has reportedly dropped out.  The five actresses mentioned are meeting with Webb and Garfield and reading for the role, rather than taking conventional screen tests.

If none of these candidates work out, The Reporter indicates that another round of searching is still possible.  But like Andrew Garfield, all the current candidates are young aspiring talents who have the youthful look that will allow them to fit in to the movie’s high school setting seamlessly.  According to THR, Webb is just look for the actress who can mesh with “the lower-key, edgier movie” that he wants to make as he attempts to reboot the billion-dollar Spider-Man franchise.