With great power comes great Hollywood royalty, it would appear.

Deadline Hollywood has the news that "West Wing" and "The Departed" actor Martin Sheen has signed on to play Uncle Ben Parker in the still unnamed fourth Spider-Man movie from Sony.

Directed by Marc Webb, the incoming film is expected to be a high school-set relaunch of the blockbuster franchise, though the degree to which the film will retell the classic origin of the character is unknown. Sheen will join Andrew Garfield as the titular hero, Emma Stone as high school sweetie Gwen Stacey and Rhys Ifans as the villainous Lizard. Sheen's next film will be "The Way" -a drama written and directed by his son Emilio Estevez about a father's journey to France to claim the body of his son.

Check out Deadline for more on this casting, and be sure to stay tuned to CBR and Spinoff Online for more on "Spider-Man 4" as it becomes available.