One of Spider-Man: Homecoming's most baffling (and arguably infuriating) moments comes when Zendaya's character Michelle reveals to Peter Parker and company that her friends refer to her as "MJ."
Michelle has nothing in common with Mary Jane Watson and while it would be no bad thing for Peter and "MJ" to get together somewhere down the line, fans won't be happy if she ends up being a radically different take on the fan-favourite redhead. Well, fear not, as Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and Spider-Man: Homecoming producer Amy Pascal as confirmed that Michelle is not Mary Jane.
Well, we never even looked at it as a big reveal necessarily but more of just a fun homage to his past adventures and his past love. She's not Mary Jane Watson. She never was Mary Jane Watson. She was always this new high school character, Michelle, who we know there's an "M" in Michelle and an "M" in Mary. [laughs] So we're so clever and we thought, "Wouldn't it be neat if her initials were MJ?" And then I think it leaked that she would be playing MJ and then it became a whole headache for Zendaya to have to navigate. It was never a big, "Oh my God, it's a big reveal!" There are big reveals in the movie. That's not one of them.
Pascal added to that by stating, "She is not going to end as being Mary Jane Watson," while Feige would reiterate that by reassuring fans they're not changing things up too drastically. "She's not Mary-Jane Watson. Is she going to date Peter? Are they going to fall in love? She seems to be intrigued with him. There's a nice chemistry there. Who knows what will happen in the future films?"
It's possible that Marvel and Sony wanted to test the waters with the whole "MJ" reveal and that they've now realised that it would have been a mistake to handle Mary Jane like this. Alternatively, it could have just been a way of poking fun at reports that Zendaya is playing Mary Jane! What do you guys think? As always, share your thoughts and theories in the comments section down below.
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