An industry insider has claimed that Marvel has found its replacement for Zendaya in the fourth installment of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man series.
The last time audiences saw Tom Holand’s Peter Parker, he was shifting to a solo life. At the conclusion of Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), the character moves into his own New York City apartment after having lost his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and made the world forget that Peter Parker ever existed – including Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Peter’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya).
Related: Zendaya Was the Real Hero of ‘Spider-Man,’ Confirmed
With MJ and Peter no longer in a relationship, audiences were confused about whether Zendaya would return for the upcoming sequel to No Way Home. However, a leak from an industry insider has given us a pretty good idea of how things might play out (although it may not impress every fan).
According to Austin Verse, the fourth Spider-Man film will replace Zendaya as Tom Holland’s character’s love interest. He reports that none other Sydney Sweeney – who recently starred as Julia Carpenter, the future Spider-Woman, in the mega-flop that was Madame Web (2024) – will step into this role by portraying Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat.
BREAKING NEWS!! 🚨
Sydney Sweeney has been cast as Black Cat / Felicia Hardy in Spider-Man 4 starring Tom Holland ✅
She will be the main love interest for the movie but Zendaya will slowly remember who Peter is. The love triangle will happen with MJ and Felicia.
Black Cat and her father will have a past with Kingpin. Felicia wants revenge 😳
https://twitter.com/austin_medz/status/1780349857531601134
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That doesn’t mean Zendaya is totally out of the picture. Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal recently raved about Zendaya’s role in the franchise, with multiple reports suggesting that she will, in fact, reprise her role as MJ – starring alongside her real-life boyfriend Holland for a fourth time. MJ will allegedly begin to remember Peter Parker over the course of the film, eventually establishing a love triangle between MJ, Peter, and Felicia.
This would assumedly play out similar to how a love triangle formed between Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), and Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) in Spider-Man 3 (2007), and how a love triangle was supposed to form between Shailene Woodley, Andrew Garfield, and Emma Stone’s versions of the characters in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) before Woodley was cut from the film after producers decided there was already “so much on the table.”
For now, this is just a rumor, so we’d take this with a grain of salt. However, it does play into several other details we’ve heard about the film so far, such as Kevin Feige wanting it to be a “street-level” story involving Kingpin. Fans have also expressed interest in seeing Sydney Sweeney – who’s best known for playing Cassie in Euphoria and the recent rom-com hit Anyone But You (2023) – join the actual Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While Spider-Man 4 doesn’t currently have a release date (or an actual name or a director), it’s apparently getting closer to a filming date. Earlier this month, The InSneider (who’s usually pretty accurate with his Marvel leaks) claimed that the film will begin production by September or October 2024. Yesterday, we also heard that Marvel is eyeing Sam Raimi – AKA the man at the helm of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy and the slightly less popular Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2021) – as a potential director.
How do you feel about Sydney Sweeney potentially replacing Zendaya as Peter Parker’s love interest? Let us know in the comments!
This post Report: Marvel Replaces Zendaya for ‘Spider-Man 4,’ Finds New Actress appeared first on Inside the Magic.
Horrible. Sweeney is over-rated and a horrific actress. Zendaya is a much better actress.
I don’t know. If tom and zendaya are okay with this then of course I am. I should probably be the one to ask them.