Spider-Man: No Way Home Stars Tom Holland and Zendaya Reveal Talks to Make MJ a Superhero

By Russ Burlingame

At one point, Sony considered the idea of making MJ (Zenaya) into her own superhero in the Spider-Man universe, but the idea has since been abandoned. That's according to Zendaya and her co-star and boyfriend Tom Holland, who dropped the revelation during an interview posted to Russian social media platform Odnoklassniki (also known as "OK"). This wasn't one of those cases where somebody let slip something they shouldn't have, or provided a shocking behind-the-scenes detail without knowing it would get picked up. In this case, the reporter asked Zendaya directly whether she had ever asked producers to get her suited up.

"No, no, no," Zendaya said. Holland came to life with the revelation, though.

"They were trying for a while, though, do you remember that?" Holland said with a laugh, prompting Zendaya to say, "Yeah, but I leave the superheroing to this one."

You can check the interview out below.

In the comics, MJ's counterpart, Mary Jane Watson, did have an alternate-earth doppelganger where she got spider powers and transformed herself into the hero Spinneret. In the main-line Marvel Comics continuity, MJ isn't a superhero, but they have flirted with the idea briefly in the past. During the "Brand New Day" relaunch of the Spider-Man titles, a character named Jackpot was introduced to the lore. With a bright smile and red hair, fans and Spider-Man alike thought she might be Mary Jane Watson, since MJ's entry into Spider-Man's love life famously came with her saying "Face it, Tiger, you hit the jackpot." Ultimately, Jackpot was revealed not to be Mary Jane. 

In a funny bit of serendipity, though, the "Brand New Day" status quo was introduced following the departure of longtime Spidey scribe J. Michael Straczynski, whose last story was the controversial "One More Day." Various elements of "One More Day" actually played a role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, so while it seems the MJ-as-a-hero idea is dead, perhaps we'll see some version of the idea play out somewhere between the fourth Spider-Man movie and the planned Jackpot movie being written by Arrow scribe Marc Guggenheim.

Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina, and Benedict Cumberbatch, Sony and Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters now.

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