Spiderman Spoilers Below
I wanted to title this story “Will Anne Hathaway replace Kirstin Dunst in Spiderman?” but that’s too spoiler-filled and would kind of give away this potential plot change, as revealed by Star Magazine. Again, this is in Star so it’s possibly made up, but they make it sound legitimate so we’re not above repeating it. According to an “insider” quoted by Star, Kirstin Dunst’s redheaded neighbor character and Peter Parker’s love interest, Mary Jane, will appear in Spiderman 4 and then be written out. She’ll meet some kind of final fate and Anne Hathaway will step in to play the female lead for the rest of the film and then in Spiderman 5 and 6.

“Kirsten is going to be in Spiderman 4, but the plan is for her character, Mary Jane, to be written out, probably by dying,” says an insider. “Anne will take over as Peter Parker’s new love interest for this project and for Spiderman 5 and 6, which are being written now.” Anne and Tobey Maguire… are pals, according to the insider.

[From Star Magazine, print edition, January 4, 2009]

I understand that they’re going to play this franchise out as long as possible and it’s well done as far as comic book movies go, but please spare us a fifth and sixth sequel! I’m not in the young movie-going market, though, and there are always a crop of new teenagers who will go see these action films.

Over the holidays I was watching poorly dubbed 90s kids movies on German TV with my five year old son. Our favorite was the super-cheesy heart-tugging Beethoven. We had to turn off a too scary film called Small Soldiers featuring army toys that come to life. The 1998 film starred Kirsten Dunst and she was so young and cute that I almost didn’t recognize her at first. (Here’s a link to the part I saw with Kirsten. She comes in at 7:30 in that linked video.)

I get the feeling that Kirsten has kind of outgrown her status as a love interest. It’s not her age, she’s only 27, it’s just that she might not be as believable in that role as another actress. There’s something very surly about her and that tends to translate on screen. A lot of people just don’t like her. I don’t think that she can’t act, just that she’s not as good as other actresses. Cinematical has a pretty good editorial in defense of Dunst. They note that Dunst is often derided and “always shoots to the top of the ‘Yuck, I So Hate Her’ list.” Maybe that kind of strong reaction by fans helped prompt her re-casting. We’ll have to wait and see though if this report in Star has any merit.

Photos below are from 2007’s Spiderman 3, thanks to Allmoviephoto.