Amazing Spider-Man 2 Director Reveals Why Mary Jane Scenes Got Cut Out

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Aw, and now I feel sorry for the girl. It must really suck to get a part in a huge summer blockbuster and then the idiots cut all of your scenes out of it. Sure, she'll probably appear in the next one, but come on. That's just wrong. How clueless were these guys when they were making the movie? You're supposed to know who you want to see in the movie from the start.

 

[hermes]

I just hope they don't introduce her later in the series, because that would have make cutting her part a pretty shortsighted thing to do.

Very short sighted, yes. Not at all like everything else they've done in the series. *sarcasm*

If there is something to say about this last movie (and the only thing to say, according to MovieBob) is that it looks like the movie is made to sell us on future projects; sort of a 2 hours long trailer.
So, yes, doing something without thinking "how does this affect our future plans for the Spiderman universe?" would be atypically shortsighted...

 

[teamcharlie]

Dropping MJ seems like a good decision to me. Not that the movie was by any means perfect, but the Gwen-Spiderman arc was reasonably well done and would have lost quite a bit of the punch if Spidey's rebound girl was already in play.

That being said, this might be a nice opportunity to put a love interest into a popular movie, i.e. Amazing Spider Man 3, who isn't the absolutely standard 'skinny, assertive, pretty-but-not-in-a-confrontational-way white girl in her early 20s' female love interest.

Make MJ black, or Asian, or Hollywood-obese (OMG she's a size 6!), or a dude, or in her 30s, or a dyed-in-the-wool lesbian, or a furry, or literally any other human being on the planet than the eight thousand girls in Hollywood who are exactly like Shailene Woodley.

 

[zinho73]

Dropping the character was the right decision. Casting the part in the first place explains a lot about the overall quality of the film script, which appears to be a collage of ideas.

 

[antipunt]

Honestly I'd be okay if they dropped her entirely. I'm tired of MJ honestly, there was a point in the ultimate comics where Peter Parker was dating Kitty Pride (Shadowcat) and I was like thank god! Less drama and we get couple fights against super villains.

I agree with this post, except I always preferred Black Cat. Moreover, they apparently already introduced Felicia Hardy in AS2 (no desire to see it). Kitty and Peter made a cute enough couple, but I will always be amused by the moment Joss Whedon crafted between Shadowcat and Collosus (she falls through the floor after sex, and Wolverine continues drinking his coffee).

But yeah, I always preferred Felicia. MJ was an interesting enough character, after a while, but they didn't do the right thigns with her character. She suffered from "Lois Lane Syndrome," where she was this assertive and strong personality, but often in need of rescue. Then Marvel constantly threw their marriage problems in readers' faces (this more a component of not being able to present long-term relationships well).

Black Cat in the ultimate universe is well a lot older than peter, she was interested up until she figured out she was hitting on like a 16 year old kid then she had this reaction. It was pretty funny if I do say so myself.

Spoiler

Black Cat unmasks spider-man (ultimate) [http://imgur.com/gallery/xfHsV]

I really enjoy the ultimate universe it has so much less baggage compared the marvels traditional setting. Still hoping they give Ultimate Spider-woman her own comic, Jessica drew is awesome.

My god... VOMIT?!
He's not...-that- bad is he?

>_>

I mean Cats...Cougars? Same thing? \()/

 

[synobal]

Honestly I'd be okay if they dropped her entirely. I'm tired of MJ honestly, there was a point in the ultimate comics where Peter Parker was dating Kitty Pride (Shadowcat) and I was like thank god! Less drama and we get couple fights against super villains.

I agree with this post, except I always preferred Black Cat. Moreover, they apparently already introduced Felicia Hardy in AS2 (no desire to see it). Kitty and Peter made a cute enough couple, but I will always be amused by the moment Joss Whedon crafted between Shadowcat and Collosus (she falls through the floor after sex, and Wolverine continues drinking his coffee).

But yeah, I always preferred Felicia. MJ was an interesting enough character, after a while, but they didn't do the right thigns with her character. She suffered from "Lois Lane Syndrome," where she was this assertive and strong personality, but often in need of rescue. Then Marvel constantly threw their marriage problems in readers' faces (this more a component of not being able to present long-term relationships well).

Black Cat in the ultimate universe is well a lot older than peter, she was interested up until she figured out she was hitting on like a 16 year old kid then she had this reaction. It was pretty funny if I do say so myself.

Spoiler

Black Cat unmasks spider-man (ultimate) [http://imgur.com/gallery/xfHsV]

I really enjoy the ultimate universe it has so much less baggage compared the marvels traditional setting. Still hoping they give Ultimate Spider-woman her own comic, Jessica drew is awesome.

My god... VOMIT?!
He's not...-that- bad is he?

>_>

I mean Cats...Cougars? Same thing? \()/

This is the ultimate universe, things get over the top at times. At one point the human torch, Iceman, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker were all living in the same house.

 

[Grabehn]

Considering on how much of an "Iron Man 2 feel" this movie has, I would think that adding yet another character-thing into the mix would've just made it more convoluted. Guess they'll just introduce here later with no "which one do I stay with" plot device.

 

[Something Amyss]

Im glad they cut her. Nothing against her of course. But having her in the film would really draw away from the tragedy of the conclusion. It just wouldnt be as compelling if we were already being served MJ and being hinted to move on.

Plus, it sounds like the movie was already a massive clusterhump.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm guessing they're saving MJ for the next movie. Maybe he'll have to choose between her and Black Cat or some bullshit like that.

 

[SilverUchiha]

what it really sounds like is:

"We didn't want to make our movie even MORE of a cluster-fuck than it already was. So we cut out an extra character who was distracting from the convoluted mess of a plot we already had."

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I actually agree this was one of the few GOOD decisions they made. But it really does come off as pointless when you consider the fact there's A LOT that should have been cut from this film to make the narrative function better and it just didn't. There's a lot that should have been done to make it less of a convoluted mess than it ended up being. Just simply cutting Mary Jane wasn't enough. It's a start, but not enough.

Would love to see Sony scrap their plans to continue this horrible reboot idea for a while and just let Spidey hide in the closet for a bit before trying this again (or returning it to Marvel) so we can eventually get a better director, writer, and actors and try again, but only doing it better. Reiterate, I'm fine if Sony keeps Spiderman and Marvel doesn't get him back, so long as they can make a "good" movie out of it for once.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Kirsten Dunst will always be the fairest of them all and i will hear no more of this treachery!!

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Well, he's obviously lying, Sony made him cut it for more sequel-baiting. Stay classy, Webb. P.S. Any other characters I love that you'd like to completely fuck up while you're here? You know Ms. Marvel hasn't had a movie yet, I wonder if you can make that suck, too.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I dont collect comics and even i knew what Gwens fate is going to be. Whether it happened in movie 2 or the next one, you just know that eventually it will happen. So for me when it happened it really wasnt that big of a surprise, nor did i really care about her character. I think they are lying about the whole MJ thing, they could have set her up as a friend of Gwens or seen her around somewhere and introduces herself. Thing is people who watched the Raimi movies know who MJ is so im guessing they cut her out so it would automatically make you call time on the Peter/Gwen relationship as being worthless as their is no point us getting sucked into a relationship we know is doomed.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I thought I heard something that while the fans may like Mary Jane, a ton of the people who write the spiderman comics utterly despise her for some reason.

That's typically the joke with Spider-Man fans; Joe Quesada (the man who commissioned the infamous One More Day storyline) has apparently said that he believed that Spidey getting married "aged" him. Quite frankly the man in general seems to dislike marriage in comics, judging by how Jean Grey and Wasp were also killed off just to make their significant others single.

Though Spidey in general seems to be the one where you have the BIGGEST display of the "author vs. fans" dynamic, not helped by the fact that a lot of comic writers were fans growing up.

 

[Batou667]

The film couldn't have "handled" the introduction of a new character? Not even as a "see ya in the sequel!"-style cameo or teaser? Buuuuuulllll shizzle.

I think what actually happened is the marketing department caught wind of how the photos of Shailene Woodley on set received overwhelmingly negative feedback online (she's a perfectly nice-looking girl but I agree she was horribly miscast) and gave the order to nix her from the script.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Which actress would you want to be cast as MJ in Amazing Spider-Man 3?

Why couldn't Shailene Woodley just continue to portray her, even though her appearance in this film was cut?

 

[BoomingEchoes]

This hasn't been a big secret though, Webb has been saying this since the early days of filming this one, she's been on the cutting room floor for a while now.

MJ wasn't supposed to have a big role any way, more like a seeding, but he had said back then it just didn't work so it'd be cut from the film, especially since there was plans to have Felicia Hardy show up in some way -any ideas of a love square, having all of Peter's major-ish love interests in one place (at least in name), was likely going to be too hard to do or manage amongst everything else going on, whether it was something they were actually going try to do in the movie, or something people made up on their own (to ultimately get let down by).

Webb had said this was well before we knew how much stuff they were going to be packing into this movie too, so it was way easier for people to feel like the movie was going to be some sort of failure (or that the makers were implying it could be) on the back of how they felt the first one was a let down, for not being able to include a single character. Folks ran all over with it.

 

[BoomingEchoes]

Which actress would you want to be cast as MJ in Amazing Spider-Man 3?

Why couldn't Shailene Woodley just continue to portray her, even though her appearance in this film was cut?

I'm pretty sure, back when Webb had said MJ wasn't going to make it in as far back in the beginning of production, that she's still contracted to play her.

Only thing that would stop her now is scheduling. She's suddenly blossoming into a major star (I guess, I'm not one to say who is and isn't) and if there's a conflict her people or Sony may opt her out.. But if she is a major star it might be all the reason to figure out how to keep her.