It’s been a topic of much rumor and much contention, but the director of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Marc Webb has spoken to put the rumor mill to rest regarding the fate of the iconic Spider-Man character Mary-Jane Watson, and Shailene Woodley, the actress slated to play her.
Head under the cut to see what Webb had to say.
Here are the facts: Woodley is not dropping out of the production. Mary-Jane Watson is being moved to the third film instead, in order to give the second more time to focus on the relationship between Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker. Should Woodley’s schedule still line up with the production schedule for TASM3, she will continue to play Mary-Jane Watson.
Webb stated his reasoning for the shift in an interview with Crave Online:
“It wasn’t [cut]… The character was just teased. It was a very minor inflection and I felt it was important to really focus on Peter and Gwen’s storyline. It was hard because I love Shai. I think she’s such a brilliant actor and such a lovely, wonderful warm person. That was hard and having her presence in a movie is great but I thought it was important to focus on Peter and Gwen. I’m excited to see Spectacular Now, though.”
It’s nice to finally have some solid answers from the man himself with regards to what the heck is going on with the new Spider-Man movie universe. He also dropped this little hint in that same interview about the future of the series:
Well, I think this was conceived of as a trilogy so there was a defined architecture to the story we were telling and we had sort of a rough outline of what was going to happen. I think [for] the fourth movie, what we’ve discovered is there are so many ancillary characters, that have enormous, cinematic potential that there may be other ways to exploit those characters, in a way that is exciting and fun and worthwhile. It might not just be a Spider-Man movie.
A “not just Spider-Man” movie sounds interesting, especially considering how many dynamic characters exist in the Spider-Man universe. Should the second film improve upon the first, I look forward to seeing what Webb has in store for the rest of the story.
Now if only he could join the Avengers…
(via Blastr)
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