Zendaya will play Mary Jane Watson in the upcoming movie Spider-Man: Homecoming.
TheWrap.com have reported that Zendaya will be taking on the role of Mary Jane, previously portrayed by Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man in 2002, and two further movies. Shailene Woodley also took on the character in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014, but her scenes were ultimately cut from the film.
The 19-year-old actress’ involvement in the comic book adaptation movie was announced back in March (16), when she was rumoured to be playing a character called Michelle. But the moniker was reportedly a pseudonym.
The outlet claims they were made aware of details of Zendaya’s role by “two individuals with knowledge of the project”.
However, given that the new film will centre on a high-school aged Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker – with relative newcomer Tom Holland taking on the title role – it is so far unclear whether there will be any romantic involvement between the hero and Zendaya’s character.
Spider-Man: Homecoming will mark the first major movie role for Zendaya, most well known for her work on Disney Channel show Shake It Up!.
In an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in March (16), the young star revealed she was very excited by the opportunity as she is “basically unknown” in the acting scene.
“I’ve never been in a real movie before or anything like that, so I had to start from the bottom like anyone else,” she said.
“I auditioned and auditioned and auditioned and broke down those walls because a lot of people do have that pre-conceived notion of who I am based off previous things I’ve done, so you got to really break that down and go hard, put in the work, take all the meetings, take all the auditions.” But Zendaya admitted she could not discuss the film in any further detail and didn’t know when the film was going to start shooting.
“I can’t say anything else other than I’m going to be in it,” she shared.
Tom Holland takes on the Peter Parker/Spider-Man played previously by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, in the film to be directed by Jon Watts of Cop Car fame.
According to Deadline, British-born Tom, 19, was the first to be cast so he could be part of the ensemble in the Joe and Anthony Russo-directed Captain America: Civil War, the first film in which the superhero has crossed over with the established characters of the Marvel Studios universe.
The new untitled Spider-Man reboot is scheduled for release in July (17).
