Kevin Feige Talks About The Whole "MJ" Thing in SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING
If you haven't seen Spider-Man: Homecoming yet, you might want to steer clear of this article as it contains some light spoilers.
As much as I loved Spider-Man: Homecoming, one of the things that bugged me was the whole Michelle being MJ thing. It seemed like Marvel went out of their way to make sure this little detail was hidden, and in the end, it seemed to get more of an eye roll from audiences than anything.
Michelle and Mary Jane Watson are two completely different characters. If Michelle is now MJ in the MCU, does that mean we'll never see actual Mary Jane Watson? Is Michelle going to take the place of this character? Will Peter Parker ever have some kind of relationship with her like he did with the real MJ? Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and producer Amy Pascal talked a little bit about the new character, saying:
"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."
If it wasn't a big reveal, why did they go out of their way to try and hide the fact that Michelle was MJ? As for whether or not she will eventually be Peter Parker's love interest, Feige says:
"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?"
Well, if anyone knows what will happen in the future Spider-man film, it's Kevin Feige! I don't know, maybe they'll end up doing some fun with the character in future films. What do you all think of the new MJ character? Are you cool with the way Michelle was handled or were you a little put off by it?