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In the world of Marvel’s “Spider-Man,” the most memorable cinematic versions of his iconic love interest MJ are undoubtedly Kirsten Dunst and Zendaya. However, there is another version who is rarely discussed: Shailene Woodley.
Woodley’s version is so rarely mentioned because every scene featuring her was cut from the only film in which she was supposed to appear, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. At the time, the filmmakers felt that the story was already too crowded and did not want her introduction to interfere with Spider-Man’s grief over the death of Gwen Stacy. Sony Pictures originally planned to hold Woodley’s version of Mary Jane Watson back until the third film, but after the second installment underperformed at the box office, all future plans were canceled.
Years later, Woodley was recently asked about the story again during a career retrospective panel hosted by the Screen Actors Guild. She admitted that she had been genuinely excited about joining the film at the time. “We did shoot it. That phone call is funny. I was cast as Mary Jane in Spider-Man, and it was a dream of mine. Spider-Man is my favorite superhero, and Mary Jane was my favorite character growing up. So when I got the part, I was so excited.”
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Woodley continued: “I shot about three scenes with Andrew Garfield, and then about a year later, Sony told me, ‘You’re not going to be in this movie.’ I thought, ‘What? What does that mean?’ They said, ‘We introduced a lot of new characters in this installment, so we want to wait until what happens between Emma Stone and Andrew is over.’ In other words, they wanted to wait until she died before introducing Mary Jane. That made sense. But then they never made the next movie.”
Woodley concluded with a self-deprecating joke: “They thought it would be strange to introduce a new love interest right away. That’s what they told me, anyway. But who knows what the truth was? Maybe I was terrible, and they watched it and thought, ‘We absolutely cannot put her in the movie.’”