Shailene Woodley has revealed that she did not learn her scenes as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider Man 2 had been cut until roughly a year after she finished filming them, according to unilad.com.
The actor shot three scenes alongside lead actor Andrew Garfield for the 2014 superhero sequel after being cast by director Marc Webb. The role held personal significance for the actor, who noted that Spider-Man was her favourite childhood superhero and Mary Jane was her favourite character.
Filmmakers ultimately removed the character to streamline the plot. Woodley was told that the production wanted to delay introducing Mary Jane until after the death of Gwen Stacy, played by Emma Stone. However, plans for a subsequent sequel that could have featured the character did not materialise.
Producer Matt Tolmach acknowledged at the time that the production had attempted to include too much narrative material into a single film, resulting in a script length of 148 pages before the Mary Jane subplot was dropped. While Woodley joked that her performance might have contributed to the deletion, studio constraints remained the primary factor. The character of Mary Jane was previously portrayed by Kirsten Dunst in Sam Raimi’s earlier Spider-Man trilogy.
•Featured image: Shailene Woodley/Getty Images