Shailene Woodley has described her disappointment at learning, more than 12 years later, that her scenes in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" would not appear in the film. Woodley said she learned about a year after filming that her role as Mary Jane Watson opposite Andrew Garfield had been cut from the movie, which was released in May 2014.
Woodley, speaking as part of the "SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations" series, said being cast as Mary Jane "was my dream because I really, oh my god, Spider-Man's my favorite superhero. Mary Jane was my favorite character growing up." She recalled that she filmed roughly three scenes with Garfield before being told her character would not appear in the film.
According to Woodley, filmmakers decided to exclude Mary Jane because they believed introducing another love interest for Peter Parker would be confusing. "We had a 148-page script," producer Matt Tolmach told Variety at the film's 2014 New York premiere, explaining the deletion. "We were in the middle of that, and we realized this story [with Mary Jane] is not going to be in this movie." Woodley noted that she was told the filmmakers planned to introduce Mary Jane after the death of Gwen Stacy, Emma Stone's character, but that subsequent films were never made.
