Yesterday, we reported that Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), who was set to play Mary Jane in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, had been cut from the picture because director Marc Webb wanted to "streamline the story and focus on Peter and Gwen and their relationship."  The character would appear in The Amazing Spider-Man 3, but would likely be recast.  However, a new wrinkle has emerged as the production has possibly cast their new MJ already by hiring Sarah Gadon (Cosmopolis).

Hit the jump for more.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in 3D on May 2, 2014. [Update: The actress has taken to Twitter to clear things up: "To all those a twitter, I will not be playing MJ in Spider-Man. I have a role in the film, but it is not that one :)."]

Last night, ET Canada [via JoBlo] tweeted the following:

Huge news for @sarahgadon - she just confirmed to us that she is joining The Amazing Spider-Man franchise pic.twitter.com/HpRcAMhQGU

— ET Canada (@ETCanada) June 21, 2013

 

That's pretty vague, but it's possible that the studio wants to lock down an actress to play Mary Jane so the production can hit the ground running on The Amazing Spider-Man 3.  There's also the disappointing possibility that Webb's statement was false, and they felt Woodley's performance wasn't in line with their vision for the character, so they hired Gadon to play the role.  I personally have no problem with Gadon since I've only seen her in Cosmopolis and Antiviral, and she was fine in both if not particularly memorable due to being overshadowed by incredibly unhinged lead characters. Of course, it's also possible that Gadon isn't playing Mary Jane at all.

I'm sure this will all be sorted out soon, but it does raise the question of how vital the Mary Jane role is to The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  Is it something that can be excised completely with no harm to the story?  Because when they tried to cut most of the Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan) role from The Amazing Spider-Man, it only led to confusion.