Spider-Man: Kirsten Dunst Would Play Mary Jane Again in the MCU

Many of Kirsten Dunst’s most famous roles have been getting remade in the last few years. And Dunst is now commenting on this trend in a new interview. There was Florence Pugh playing Amy March in the Greta Gerwig remake of Little Women (a role which earned Dunst raves), and there is the impending television redo on AMC of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, which will certainly include a new iteration of Claudia, Dunst’s star-making role in 1994. And then there’s Mary Jane Watson. The girl next door in Spider-Man.

While the character of Mary Jane hasn’t technically been recast, Zendaya’s “MJ” sure has figured prominently in the new Marvel Studios take on the Spider-Man comic book mythos. And those Tom Holland-led films themselves constitute the second remake (or “reboot”) cycle at Sony in under a decade, following on the heels of the Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone-fronted The Amazing Spider-Man films.

“It seems like a lot of movies I do get remade,” Dunst told EW. “It’s like a running theme for me.” Be that as it may, she does not seem to totally begrudge the utilitarian values of the movie industry and even leaves the door open for appearing in Marvel Studios’ current Spider-Man movies, which is a prospect fans have been speculating on for some time.

“I wish they’d put me in another one,” Dunst said. “Like, old-girl Mary Jane—why not? I would do [another superhero movie]. Everybody else is!”

Indeed, when Dunst first starred opposite Tobey Maguire in 2002’s Spider-Man, adapting the popular Marvel Comics character seemed like a novelty. The only major superhero movie franchises on the big screen before Spidey were those revolving around Superman and Batman—both of which had petered out to ignominious ends by the late ‘90s. Sure, X-Men (2000) came out a few years before too, but the idea of doing a colorful, full-steam ahead comic book movie like Spider-Man was viewed as a gamble. And one which paved the way for the MCU.

Perhaps that’s why so many fans are anxiously anticipating this month’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. The third Holland and Zendaya-led Spider-Man movie boasts a plot which uses “multiverse” gibberish to bring back all of the most popular Spider-Man villains from franchises past, including Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin from Dunst/Maguire’s era. It’s also led many fans to speculate and share rumors about both Maguire and Dunst appearing in No Way Home.

Of course Dunst did not confirm this with her latest comment, and simply left the door open that she’d be happy to return to a genre that has totally consumed Hollywood cinema in the 21st century. However, this marks a change of tone toward the MCU films after previous comments. It was only in 2017 when Dunst said, “We made the best ones, so who cares? I’m like, ‘You make it all you want.’ They’re just milking that cow for money… I’d rather be in the first ones than the new ones.”

The change of tenor about appearing in modern superhero movies—perhaps even modern Spider-Man flicks—might suggest she’s already considered the idea at great length. And maybe acted on it.

Kirsten Dunst can next be seen in Jane Campion’s buzzy Netflix Western, The Power of the Dog, for which Dunst has received Oscar speculation for her performance. It is streaming now. Meanwhile Spider-Man: No Way Home opens on Dec. 17.