Shailene Woodley was set to play MJ in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: just over a decade later, she’s told her side of the story. Given how rampant the latest Spider-Man film – Spider-Man: Brand New Day – is at the box office, it’s easy to forget that 12 years ago, the webslinger was in trouble ... How Shailene Woodley learned she was cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Shailene Woodley was set to play MJ in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: just over a decade later, she’s told her side of the story.
Given how rampant the latest Spider-Man film – Spider-Man: Brand New Day – is at the box office, it’s easy to forget that 12 years ago, the webslinger was in trouble on the big screen.
That was when Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 arrived in cinemas, and saw its box office decline against its immediate predecessor. A film stuffed with characters, and designed as the launching pad for Sony’s Spider-Man universe of characters, the underwhelming critical and commercial response to the movie sent Sony back to Marvel, and indirectly launched the Tom Holland era.
There were ramifications to that, of course, one of which was we never got to see Shailene Woodley in the role of Mary Jane, in which she’d been cast. More than that, she filmed material for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 that never made the final cut of the film, with the decision made to introduce the character in what would have been 2016’s The Amazing Spider-Man 3.
Woodley has remained fairly mum on all of this over the years, and she’s only recently opened up about it in a conversation with SAG-AFTRA, reflecting on her career.
Specific to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, she recalls being cast as MJ “was my dream”, and that Spider-Man is “my favourite superhero.” It was an exciting time for her.
But this story didn’t have a great ending, although it’d be a year before she learned she’d got the cut from the movie.
As she explained, “we filmed like three scenes together, me and Andrew Garfield, and then, like a year later, they were like, ‘so, you’re not in the movie anymore.’ And I was like ‘what? What do you mean?’”
What they meant was that they’d feared bringing MJ into the story at that point would have taken away from the relationship between Garfield’s Spider-Man and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy. An explanation she understood, but still: having been given the role without having to audition (a first for her), it wasn’t the best moment.
Sony and director Marc Webb haven’t gone into more detail beyond what Woodley was given, and while some pap shots of Woodley in character emerged, no footage ever did.
Her career retrospective video is well, well worth a look. You can see that here.
