Is Mary Jane A College Whiz Kid In THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2?

Most imagine Mary Jane Watson as the doting, cute, stoic girlfriend of New York City’s favorite web slinging arachnid, waiting anxiously at home while Spidey fights off Green Goblin’s evil horde of misshapen mad men, only ever offering a “Go get ’em Tiger” as her main source of encouragement. Obviously, the comic book version of MJ isn’t always written as a vapid figure of desire, but this concept was the one translated to the big screen in Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man Trilogy.

Shailene Woodley, your new MJ

Well, some interesting new tidbits from the set of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 have surfaced, and they could possibly indicate a more convincing take on the character. According to the Wall Street Journal, amongst the mayhem of sets, they’ve spotted one in particular of a female student’s dorm room at Columbia University. This could easily belong to Gwen Stacy, especially after Director Marc Webb transformed her into such a whiz kid in the previous installment, but I don’t think either Gwen or Peter will have graduated by then. I suppose it could also be part of an internship program, but I’d like to think that the dorm room belongs to Mary Jane, instead. This would be a huge turn for the character, who’s often portrayed as the naive and uneducated Damsel in Distress, and could offer a great contrast to Raimi universe, which has been a constant thorn in Webb’s side.

What do you think? I’m usually afraid of loose film adaptations, but I’d welcome a more substantial take on MJ. I’m not sure how many more “Geek turns into hero, instantly gets girl” story lines I can handle. Is it so wrong that they should have a mutual interest like science? Because science is fucking awesome.

Outer Space and stuff.

SOURCE: WSJ