Shailene Woodley had one of those Hollywood phone calls that can make years of excitement disappear in seconds. The actress was cast as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a dream role for someone who grew up loving both Spider-Man and the character herself. She even filmed scenes opposite Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker.

Then, nearly a year later, she learned none of it would make the movie.

Shailene Woodley recently recalled the experience of not being included in the final cut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 during a conversation with SAG-AFTRA, as reported by Deadline. She said landing Mary Jane felt almost too good to be true, especially because Spider-Man had been her favorite superhero growing up.

“Oh, we shot it. That was a fun phone call,” Woodley said. She had filmed around three scenes with Garfield before learning that she was no longer going to appear in the movie. According to Woodley, the explanation she received was that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had already introduced several new characters, and the filmmakers wanted to wait before bringing Mary Jane into the story.

“I could have been terrible, and they were like, ‘We can’t do this,’” she said. As Woodley explained in her SAG-AFTRA conversation, (as reported by Deadline), the plan was to let Peter’s relationship with Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy play out before introducing Mary Jane later. That seemed reasonable to Woodley at the time — until the planned follow-up never happened.

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But Woodley’s lost Mary Jane is only one part of a much bigger pattern. For all the character’s importance to Spider-Man, her live-action history has rarely been as straightforward as fans might expect.

Mary Jane Watson has never exactly been a minor character in Spider-Man’s world. Kirsten Dunst’s MJ became Peter Parker’s love interest across Tobey Maguire’s trilogy, while Zendaya’s MCU character brought a very different version of MJ into Tom Holland’s Spider-Man story. Yet both interpretations eventually reached a point where their futures were left uncertain. Woodley’s version went even further — audiences never got to see it at all.

That makes her discarded Mary Jane an especially interesting piece of Spider-Man history. Woodley had already filmed scenes with Garfield, but the story that was supposed to bring her into his world never materialized. And while Garfield eventually returned to the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Woodley’s Mary Jane remained tied to a Spider-Man universe that had already moved on.

Still, with Garfield having left the door open to another return as Spider-Man under the right circumstances, it is hard not to wonder what could happen if that world ever gets another chapter. If The Amazing Spider-Man 3 were somehow made, perhaps Woodley could finally get the call to reprise Mary Jane — and, this time, actually make the cut.

For a character who has been such an important part of Peter Parker’s story, Mary Jane has had a surprisingly complicated journey on the big screen.

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Could Shailene Woodley finally get her chance to play Mary Jane if Andrew Garfield ever returned for another Spider-Man movie, or is it better to leave this forgotten chapter of the franchise in the past? Let us know what you think in the comments!