Shailene Woodley has revealed that she filmed three scenes as Mary Jane Watson for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but was told a year later that her character had been cut so she could be introduced in a planned third film that was never made.
The Divergent star was cast in the film back in 2013 and spent three days filming with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker for the 2014 sequel.
However, her scenes were cut while the film was in production, with director Marc Webb saying he had decided to streamline the story around Peter and Emma Stone’s character, Gwen Stacy.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the second of two films starring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, after Webb’s 2012 reboot, which also starred Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy and Rhys Ifans as the villainous Lizard.
Sony had announced a third film, initially scheduled for 2016 and later moved to 2018, but it was never made.
During a career retrospective for the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Conversations series, Woodley talked about the “fun phone call” in which she was told she was no longer in the film.
“I was cast as Mary Jane for Spider-Man, which was my dream because Spider-Man’s my favourite superhero. Mary Jane was my favourite character growing up,” she said. “So, when I got it, I was like, ‘This is so exciting.’”
She added that she had filmed “three scenes together” with Garfield, but was told a year later that she had been dropped from the film.
“I was like, ‘What? What do you mean?’ And 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] and Andrew [Garfield],” Woodley said.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 follows Peter Parker struggling to balance his relationship with Gwen as he lives his life as Spider-Man while battling the super-powered Electro (Jamie Foxx) and his former friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), who becomes the Green Goblin.
In the film, after Harry abducts Gwen and takes her to a clock tower, Peter defeats him but fails to save Gwen when she falls to her death.
Shailene Woodley explained that the film’s team intended to “wait for [Gwen] to die and then we’ll introduce Mary Jane.” “Which made sense. But then they didn’t make that film.”
“But again, who knows what the truth is. I could have been terrible and they’re like, ‘We can’t do this,’” she joked.
