Los Angeles: Shailene Woodley said she once starred as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ only for the role to be cut from the final movie, which featured Andrew Garfield as the web-casting superhero.
Speaking with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s ‘Conversations’, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ star said she didn’t find out about her scenes being deleted until about a year after she had finished filming for the ‘Sony Pictures’ movie, which was released in theatres in May 2014.
“I was cast as Mary Jane for Spider-Man, which was my dream. Oh my god, Spider-Man’s my favourite superhero; Mary Jane was my favourite character growing up. So, when I got it, I was like, ‘This is so exciting!’ We filmed three scenes together, Andrew Garfield and me. 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?’ And they’re like, ‘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)’.”
According to Woodley, the plan was to introduce her character after Stone’s Gwen Stacy dies in the movie, but then the studio decided not to go ahead with the third instalment after the second movie didn’t do well at the box office.
“They were like, ‘Let’s wait for her to die and then we’ll introduce Mary Jane’. Which made sense, but then they didn’t make that film. So, there was no reintroduction. That’s what I was told, but again, who knows what the truth is? I could have been terrible and they were like, ‘We can’t do this’.”
In Sam Raimi’s original ‘Spider-Man’ trilogy, Mary Jane, played by Kirsten Dunst, was Peter Parker’s love interest, but the version starring Garfield focused on Peter’s relationship with Gwen Stacy.