Well, here’s a weird one. Ever since the revelation that Zendaya’s Michelle in Spider-Man: Homecoming was MJ, the MCU’s version of Mary Jane Watson, she’s garnered nothing but praise for her performance. The actress went on to impress in Spider-Man: Far From Home as well, fleshing out the character and having some genuine and very sweet romantic chemistry with Tom Holland’s Spidey.
But now our sources – the same ones who told us Marvel is eyeing Daniel Radcliffe for Moon Knight and a She-Hulk show is in the works for Disney Plus – are telling us that Marvel Studios (and presumably Sony Pictures, to some degree) are considering introducing “the real MJ” into the MCU in Spider-Man 3. We’re being told that a current early draft of the script sees a more traditional Mary Jane Watson, one more familiar to readers of the comics, arriving at Peter’s high school and acting as a love interest for him.
Honestly, my first reaction to this is to wonder what the heck is in the water at Marvel Studios? Zendaya’s been warmly received as MJ, putting a unique spin on a role that audiences were already very familiar with from Kirsten Dunst’s performance in the Sam Raimi films. As such, introducing another love interest – not to mention another MJ – for Peter may rub some folks the wrong way.
Of course, it’s still unclear exactly what Marvel might have planned for the character, but we can speculate that this ‘real’ MJ is a red herring, designed to introduce a bit of romantic conflict into the plot in order to temporarily break up Zendaya’s MJ and Peter, before bringing them back together by the end. But honestly, it still seems like something that could ruffle a few feathers amongst the fans and it’ll be interesting to see if it ends up making it into the final draft of Spider-Man 3. As of right now, though, it’s definitely in the script, and given that this intel comes to us from the same sources who also told us Tom Holland is in talks for a Venom 2 cameo, which we now know to be true, we’ve no reason to doubt it.
