Somewhere in the Spider-Verse, Shailene Woodley actually got to be Mary Jane Watson. Unfortunately, it wasn't in our universe.
The actress was cast as Peter Parker's famous love interest for 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and even filmed around three scenes opposite Andrew Garfield. Then, roughly a year later, Woodley received the phone call every actor dreams of never receiving: her entire role had been cut.
The plan was apparently to save Mary Jane for the next film, following the fate of Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy. There was just one rather enormous plot hole: that film never happened.
More than a decade later, Woodley has revisited the role that disappeared before audiences ever officially met her, reopening an old debate among Spider-Man fans over whether Mary Jane would've made the story better or whether the film was better without her.
Either way, this revelation has the web swinging for answers.
Almost Mary Jane
'Oh, we shot it. That was a fun phone call,' Woodley recalled during a recent SAG-AFTRA conversation.
For Woodley, landing the role of Mary Jane was a dream come true.
'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!"'
Woodley said she and Garfield filmed around three scenes together. About a year later, however, she was told she was no longer in the movie.
The explanation was that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was already introducing several new characters. Instead, filmmakers wanted to see what happened between Garfield's Peter Parker and Stone's Gwen Stacy before introducing MJ.
'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,' Woodley explained.
The Sequel That Never Came
The idea arguably made narrative sense. Gwen's devastating demise at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 could have eventually opened another chapter of Peter's life, with Mary Jane entering the story afterwards, except Andrew Garfield's planned third Amazing Spider-Man movie never arrived.
That is why Shailene Woodley went from future MJ to deleted MJ to the MJ of a film universe that stopped existing. She even acknowledged another brutal possibility. '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."'
Thirteen years later, fans still can't entirely agree on whether the decision was tragic or terrific.
Fans Still Want to See Shailene Woodley's Lost MJ Scenes
One Reddit user summed up the sheer hurt of the situation rather efficiently: 'That's gotta be so brutal.'
Another found one microscopic silver lining: 'I mean..... on the bright side..... at least they called to tell her instead of blindsiding her...'
And then came the rallying cry from fans who simply want to know what Woodley's MJ would have been like.
'Release the scenes!!' one pleaded. 'I just want to see how her MJ would've been like. Pls, all the scenes together didn't even add up to like 5 minutes 😭'
Another remained admirably committed to the disappointment more than a decade later: 'Still mad about this.'
But for every fan wondering what might have been, there are others who believe the scissors may have done The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a favour.
'Good cut,' one Redditor argued, saying MJ 'would have been wrong for those movies' while praising Garfield and Stone as 'electric'.
Another agreed that introducing Mary Jane could have diminished Gwen's passing, asking how audiences were supposed to process losing Peter's love interest while essentially being told, 'Don't worry guys. His true love is here now!'
The Biggest 'What If' of the Spider-Verse: Finding the Lost Mary Jane
And therein lies the Spider-sized dilemma.
Given the magnitude of talent the actress has displayed in films like the Divergent series and The Fault in Our Stars, Woodley's scenes might have been perfectly good, but half the fandom thinks The Amazing Spider-Man 2 already had Peter, Gwen, Electro, Harry Osborn, Rhino and enough competing plot threads to keep an entire web occupied. This is exactly why the other half of the fandom was holding onto the promise of the third instalment of The Amazing Spider-Man.
Garfield eventually got his Spidey comeback when he returned alongside Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The multiverse gave us three Spider-Men in one movie. Now, if the production can spare five minutes for the Mary Jane fans never met, that would be amazing.
