UPDATED: Despite shooting a handful of scenes as Mary Jane Watson in Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Shailene Woodley will not be appearing in the superhero sequel after all, the studio confirms. The Mary Jane character – the most famous of Peter Parker’s comic book love interests – will instead be pushed to the third film so that the rebooted franchise can focus on the relationship between Peter (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) first established in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. “I made a creative decision to streamline the story and focus on Peter and Gwen and their relationship,” director Marc Webb explained in a statement. “Shailene is an incredibly talented actress and while we only shot a few scenes with Mary Jane, we all love working with her.” It’s unclear if Woodley’s already-filmed scenes will be saved for use in the third film, which has a ways to go before it hits theaters in 2016.
Related: First Trailer For ‘The Spectacular Now’
That timing calls more into question for the hot Woodley, whose starring run on ABC Family’s The Secret Life Of The American Teenager just ended after five seasons clearing her to focus on her burgeoning film career. A breakout thanks to 2011’s Oscar-winning The Descendants, Woodley has the award-winning Sundance hit The Spectacular Now in theaters in August and next March opens her first franchise, Summit‘s Divergent, which already has a sequel in the works. She’s also lined up novel adaptation The Fault In Our Stars for Fox 2000 and director Josh Boone. Even if Mary Jane is introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2016, will Woodley still be the one playing her?
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is currently in production and set to hit theaters May 2, 2014. This week Sony dated the third and fourth installments in the series for June 10, 2016 and May 4, 2018.
Who’s spectacular now, huh?
I smell either a hissy fit by Emma Stone relating to her BF having scenes with a younger, taller, thinner hottie, or a desperate money grab by the current rights holder who is going to have to milk this series.
Probably some combo of the two.
Taller? Didn’t know that. So does this mean Gwen doesn’t die at the end?
thinner, huh? If Emma Stone has to worry about someone usurping her because she is thinner, then the world’s gone crazy.
I’d take a shorter girl over a tall one any day of the week, personally. 5’1 > 5’5 > 5’9
difference of opinion. between tall or short, tall always wins out – 5’10” or more!!!!
Do not kill gwen stacy. She could be important for the whole plot.
Shailene is fantastic in THE SPECTACULAR NOW, which I saw at the LA Film Festival earlier this week. She has so much talent!
Probably cause she made the already-too-old-for-the-role Andrew Garfield look like a pervert eying red hot Mary Jane Watson next door. Didn’t want to add to his bully and jerky attitude.
People! Please stop supporting Sony and let this franchise fail do it can revert back to Marvel!
Don’t you mean Revert back to Disney?
so we can have yet another reboot?
Sounds like spin! time to re-cast the role. someone finally realized you can take the girl out of ABC Family but you cant take ABC family out of the girl.
She did a really good job in “The Descendants,” so let’s keep those punches above the belt.
It’s a superhero movie about high schoolers… I’m sure she was fine.
Ouch.
20$ says it will be recasted since Shailene has like 9 different YA franchise to front in the next few years
Divergent is the next the host, not the next Hunger Games, this girl is no actress, sorry.
Hope they cast someone better for MJ
Shailene Woodley – 21
Emma Stone – 24
Andrew Garfield – 29
its not that hard to figure out.
Hardly a huge age difference – we’re not talking Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino here!
If Shailene only filmed 3 scenes her role in the film was fairly minor – no need to speculate about backstage cat fights, hissy fits and the like. Makes sense from a story POV.
I’m sure the studio screen-tested them together. You don’t find out on the set of a $250M movie that your leads have an age difference.
My guess: The Peter-MJ dailies weren’t very strong, the producers had just put their deal together to do four films instead of three, and they decided to take a fresh whack at the Peter-MJ story now that they have two more films instead of just one.
Someone didn’t like the dailies. Simple as that most likely. I hardly believe Webb is looking to streamline anything, considering what a mess the movie’s plot seems to be…and what a mess the last one was.
Kinda like when Sophie Bush was replaced by Claire Danes in T3.
You realize that many movies have age differences in love interests. Amy Adams was 38 and Henry Cavill was 30. That is about the age difference between Andrew Garfield and Shailene Woodley. My stepdad is TEN YEARS older than my mother, does that make HIM a perv? God.
Depends how old your mother is.
I agree with Joe, but my gut is your stepdad is a perv.
lol
She and Selma Blair can cry in their martinis together.
Finally- they’ve figured out she can’t act. And um, no she was not spectacular in that film, or any. she got lucky shedding some tears in descendants.
Ha-ha. Poor Shailene. I’m not surprised actually. Why the hell they even bring Mary Jane at all? Nobody really liked her. People hated Kirsten Dunsts Mary Jane.
We were ok with new love interest Gwen. But by bringing Mary Jane back it just means that Gwen will die. Because it was in the comics or something. And that we all should wait for it to happen. And it’s just sad. And it’s like: “Gwens future corpse is still warm and you already bring new love interest for Peter?”
I’m not surprised that they saw how bad it looks and cut her off. I wish they would not bring Mary Jane at all. So that we would not have to wait until Emma Stone will die in sequel. And you know she should because they already cast new love interest for Peter…
Clearly you never read the comics. People disliked DUNST’S MJ because it was poorly written and performed by a good actress who did not want to be there, so she phoned it in.
One of the better aspects of Stan Lee’s original Spidey comics is Gwen and MJ playing off each other. And Gwen died because everyone preferred Mary Jane, who is quite different from the mopey malcontent in the Raimi films. Would they have gotten it right here? I don’t know. Considering they’re going to have Electro kill Gwen Stacy, I”d venture not as this series is an even bigger mess than the last one.
I dislike Gwen Stacy in any form they’ve put her in media. The character is only interesting because she dies and green goblin so and so. That’s it. boring.
We’re all waiting for Gwen Stacy to die and Mary Jane Watson to save Spider-Man/Peter Parker’s day so he can go save the day with real resolve and understanding.
MJW character does great in all media as his friend/lover. Gwen Stacy does what? Lover that dies. 3 more movies of boring Gwen Stacy. puke.
How do you not figure something like this out during the script phase, way before starting production? (Though as much as I admire Woodley’s talent as an actor, I do have to wonder if she wasn’t miscast as MJW.) And what about the insane number of villains they’re cramming into the film? What a mess.
I’m sure it didn’t work story wise because the audience is already attached to the Emma-Andrew relationship which isn’t fully played out yet and having both in the film is distracting and makes audiences invest in neither rather than both.
Sometimes these things are actually creative decisions to better the film. Marc Webb is incredibly talented and wouldn’t cut someone over a personal hissy fit or cast someone who didn’t work already. He puts the film first always.
First, it’s nice that this Spiderman included Gwen Stacey. Look forward to Mary Jane’s entrance. Peter actually met both Gwen and MJ in college,(not high school), around the same time, which also means they are all around the same age, give or take 2-4 years. I guessing that all this works if you NEVER read a Spiderman comic book or have NO idea of back stories. Unfortunately, a lot of us do and it’d be nice to just follow that.
Only a few scenes scheduled in Amazing?
Maybe they were doing the comic history-tease the character throughout the movie, make the audience and Peter think she’s going to be ugly, and then wow, knockout if a bit airheaded.
third movie Goblin kills Gwendy and MJ comforts him and reveals she’s not so airheadedish.
So Gwen WILL die in the second film…
…speaking as one who has seen “the spectacular now,” i would urge you all to suspend judgment of young Woodley until you’ve seen the film yourself…she is, yes, spectacular (and, no, i don’t work for A24)…
Hopefully the scenes will be on the blu ray.
The explanation and comments about “a few scenes” being minimal and insignificant are off the mark. When so many of these superhero films are devoted to effects-shots-filled action scenes, three brief, or extended, scenes with dialogue between Garfield and Woodley could have left lasting impact on the viewers/fans. And held interest for the next installment of the “Spiderman” franchise. I think it’s a mistake. And that there’s more to this story than the explanation offered by director Marc Webb in “a statement” that sounds like he was assisted in its composition by Sony’s PR and legal departments.
I would think Woodley’s deal for this film included an option on her for further sequels, so she’s probably locked in to reprising her role regardless of how busy she is otherwise.
If she is out, I see the excuse that she’s too busy is already being used, no mention of the fact that she looked horrible as MJ. Nothing against her acting, but she’s completely wrong for the part.
In my opinion, she was the wrong pick for MJ…MJ is kind of supposed to be a curvy bombshell…NOT a tall, slender beauty.
In my opinion, a younger Scarlett Johansson would have been PERFECT.
I thought Shailene was great in “The Descendants.” So did her fellow actors.
As mentioned above, with all these villains it does sound like the movie is too busy to accommodate Mary Jane.
Also, superhero movies aren’t afraid to go dark so ending on Gwen’s death and Peter’s devastation is much more dramatic than having Mary Jane there just waiting in the wings.
I do think because the other movies have been scheduled it is telling that this announcement doesn’t go on to say “and we look forward to Shailene playing Mary Jane in 3 & 4.” Maybe Emma Stone will just dye her hair red again and play Mary Jane herself. Everyone thought that was the role she was playing when she was cast initially anyway.
Shailine is an amazing talent and is well on her way to becoming a huge star.
Good. Now just recast for 3. She’s a fine actress, but not MJ material (not that Dunst was in any way, either).