A couple days ago we found out that Shailene Woodley’s Mary Jane Watson wouldn’t appear in The Amazing Spider-Man franchise until at least the third movie, as opposed to having a role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 like she was originally cast for. Now it looks like Shailene Woodley’s Mary Jane won’t appear in the franchise at all.
The actress who may be stepping into Woodley’s role is Sarah Gadon (Cosmopolis), as there’s now confirmation that she has joined the franchise. We still don’t know what role she’s in for sure, but many sources are reporting that she is indeed taking on the most iconic of all super-hero girlfriends.
Regardless of whether Webb goes with Gadon or not, a potential recasting of MJ comes as absolutely no surprise. While I’m a fan of Woodley, the initial reaction to leaked pictures of her on the set were less than receptive, and that’s putting it nicely. I know Webb isn’t basing all the decisions for his films off crazed fan-boys behind keyboards, so it’s safe to assume that if she’s getting recast, she just wasn’t working in the role. Still, she’s an actress of immense talent, and I was excited to see what she would do with the role, so hopefully Webb knows what he’s doing here.
The other question that pushing MJ out of this film raises is whether Gwen Stacy will still meet her demise or if she’ll be back for TASM3. The Gwen Stacey death saga is obviously way too long to properly do in movies, but it would certainly make sense that Webb will at least want to have the Green Goblin established before he bursts onto the scene and kills Peter’s girl.
Unfortunately for us, we’ve still got over 10 months left to speculate on all this, as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 doesn’t hit theaters until next May. Until then, be sure to check back for all your The Amazing Spider-Man news.
