Spider-Man: Far From Home Star Zendaya Wins Female Movie Star of 2019 at People’s Choice Awards

The People’s Choice Awards kicked off on Sunday night, celebrating the fan-favorites in pop culture from the past year. Given the significant amount of superhero and comic book-inspired media that’s hit the airwaves in 2019, it was safe to assume that some properties – and the stars within them – would take home a trophy. It looks like Zendaya, who starred in Spider-Man: Far From Home as well as the HBO series, Euphoria, was one of them. Zendaya officially took home the award for The Female Movie Star of 2019.

Zendaya beat out a pretty significant list of nominees, including Millie Bobby Brown (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Scarlett Johansson (Avengers: Endgame), Sophie Turner (Dark Phoenix) Jennifer Aniston (Murder Mystery) Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) Lupita Nyong’o (Us), and Tessa Thompson (Men in Black: International).

Zendaya’s role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has evolved in some interesting ways over her two big-screen appearances, as Spider-Man: Homecoming revealed that her character’s nickname was MJ. In Far From Home, MJ began to become a love interest for Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), providing a unique update on the comic-accurate relationship between Peter and Mary Jane Watson.

“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.” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige explained to IGN in 2017. “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,” Feige revealed. “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.”

Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall of 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, Spider-Man 3 on July 16, 2021, What If…? in Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021, and Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022.