Shailene Woodley has recalled that her scenes as Mary Jane Watson were removed from 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, despite the role being a childhood dream. She said the decision reflected plans to delay Mary Jane’s introduction until after the storyline involving Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy, but the intended follow-up film was never made.

Woodley said she filmed around three scenes with Garfield before being told roughly a year later that she would not appear in the film. She acknowledged she does not know the full reason for the cut; meanwhile, Garfield has ruled out returning for Avengers: Doomsday but has said he could consider another unusually conceived Spider-Man film.