Shailene Woodley was devastated when her ‘dream’ role was cut from ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’
Shailene Woodley has an enviable filmography. She has worked on commendable projects like 'Divergent,' 'Dumb Money,' 'The Descendants,' 'The Fault in Our Stars,' HBO's 'Big Little Lies,' and Season 2 of Hulu’s 'Paradise.' However, she often features in headlines for a role that did not make it on screen, mostly when a fan-favorite superhero comes out with a new adaptation. For those unaware, Woodley played Mary Jane in 2014's 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2.' However, her scenes were cut from the movie. But by then, it was widely reported that she would play the popular role, and some pictures of her shooting the movie also went viral.
During an interview at the 'SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations,' Woodley opened up about her experience during the entire process. 'The Secret Life of the American Teenager' star was elated when she booked the part. She shared that playing the role "was my dream because I really, 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.'"
She filmed around three scenes. All of them were with Andrew Garfield, who played Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, in the movie. Woodley was also a bit surprised by how she booked the part. There were no multiple rounds of auditions, just a meeting. "'Spider-Man' was not an audition," she explained. "That was a meeting with Marc Webb, and I remember feeling very rattled by it, actually, because I was like, 'How do you know that I'm—how do I know that I'm who you want and not just who the studio wants?' And suddenly there was this new thing of, like, meet the director, you get cast."
The actress revealed she was informed around a year after filming that she was no longer part of the movie. "That was a fun phone call," Woodley shared. At that time, she was told the call was taken due to a change in the creative direction. "They were 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's character, Gwen Stacy, who is Peter Parker's girlfriend in the film] and Andrew," she explained. The team apparently wanted to hold off the character for future installments. "I guess I'm so paranoid. All of these years of what I'm allowed to say or not allowed to say, I'm like, 'It's been out for over 10 years, Shailene.' Whatever. They were like, 'Let's wait for [Gwen Stacy] to die, and then we'll introduce Mary Jane.' Which made sense. But then they didn't make that film." Woodley remembered being told back then.
The account aligns with what was widely reported at the time: that the team wanted to focus on Gwen and Peter's love story, and therefore did not want Mary Jane in the mix. "Well, that's what I was told, you know," Woodley said. "But again, who knows what the truth is. I could have been terrible, and they're like, 'We can't do this.'" Matt Tolmach, who produced the venture, reiterated during the premiere that the issue was too many characters in the movie, and not Woodley's performance. "We bit off more story than we could tell. We had a 148-page script. We were in the middle of that, and we realized this story [with Mary Jane] is not going to be in this movie," he shared. The third movie in which her character would have appeared, unfortunately, never got made. After the second movie, Sony decided to collaborate with Marvel and created another 'Spider-Man' adaptation portrayed by Tom Holland.
