Shailene Woodley has revealed she was left completely blindsided after discovering her dream Spider-Man role had been cut from the film – a whole year after shooting her scenes.
The Divergent star, 34, had been cast as Mary Jane Watson opposite Andrew Garfield in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, something that was particularly huge for Woodley given her lifelong love of the superhero.
Unfortunately, her trip to the Spider-Verse ended rather abruptly.
Speaking during an interview with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Woodley recalled: ‘That was a fun phone call.’ She continued: ‘I was cast as Mary Jane for Spider-Man, which was my dream.
‘Oh my god, Spider-Man’s my favorite superhero; Mary Jane was my favorite character growing up. So, when I got it, I was like, “This is so exciting!”‘
And Woodley didn’t merely get the part on paper. She actually made it as far as filming scenes with Garfield, who played Peter Parker.
The pair shot around ‘three scenes together,’ leaving Woodley with every reason to believe audiences would eventually see her take on the iconic character.
Instead, she received some disappointing news roughly a year later.
‘Then, like a year later, they were like, “So, you’re not in the movie anymore.” I was like, “What? What do you mean?”‘ she recalled.
According to Woodley, she was told filmmakers felt the sequel was already juggling enough characters and wanted to hold off on introducing Mary Jane.
She recalled being told: ‘We’ve introduced a lot of new characters in this last one, and we’re going to wait for whatever happens between [Emma Stone] and Andrew [Garfield].’
Stone starred as Gwen Stacy, Peter’s girlfriend and Woodley’s prospective romantic rival, with plans apparently being made for Mary Jane to become a bigger part of the story following Gwen’s fate.
The sequel ultimately saw Gwen killed during its climactic confrontation with Harry Osborn, played by Dane DeHaan, seemingly leaving the door open for Woodley’s character to enter Peter’s life afterwards.
‘That’s what I was told, but again, who knows what the truth is?’ Woodley said.
She then joked there might have been a rather less flattering explanation for her disappearing act, adding: ‘I could have been terrible, and they were like, “We can’t do this.”‘
Whatever the real reason, Woodley never got the opportunity to find out what the franchise had planned for her.
A proposed third Amazing Spider-Man film was eventually abandoned, bringing Garfield’s stint as the franchise’s leading man to an unexpectedly early conclusion.
The actor first donned the famous red and blue suit for 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man before returning for its sequel two years later.
Of course, his Spider-Man wasn’t gone forever.
Garfield made his spectacular return in 2021 blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home, which united him with fellow web-slingers Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland thanks to some convenient multiverse chaos.
The film gave Garfield’s Peter an especially poignant moment when he saved Zendaya’s MJ from falling to her death – echoing his failure to save Gwen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Zendaya currently plays Michelle ‘MJ’ Jones-Watson opposite Holland’s Peter Parker, having first appeared in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming.
For Woodley, however, her own stint as MJ remains one of superhero cinema’s great what-could-have-beens.