Shailene Woodley has been confirmed for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The Descendants star was reportedly in negotiations a few weeks ago to play Mary Jane Watson in the highly anticipated sequel, but it’s how her character will be utilized in the next movie that is turning some heads.

Almost every Spider-Man fan knows how Peter Parker went from his first love Gwen Stacy to his long-time love Mary Jane. So, while it would have been interesting to see a love triangle build in the sequel, Sony Pictures has different plans in store for the new webslinger. According to THR, Woodley would only have a small role in the sequel, which would expand in The Amazing Spider-Man 3.

Now that Marc Webb is officially signed on to direct The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we can look forward to some casting news and delivering the enemy rumor mill.

Today everyone is in for a treat, because we have both. Let’s start of with the latest bit of casting news. Variety is reporting that The Descendants star Shailene Woodley is in negotiations to play Mary Jane Watson in the highly anticipated sequel. For those that don’t know, MJ is Peter Parker’s love interest in the latter part of the Spider-Man comics. But that’s not all, we got rumors of two villains who might be making an appearance in the film. Find out who below.

After The Amazing Spider-Man debuted, there was a little debate as to whether or not director Marc Webb would return to helm its sequel. Webb was contractually obligated to give Fox another feature film within the next few years, because they were the ones who had helped finance and distribute (500) Days of Summer.

However, it looks like he may have straightened a few things out with the studio as a Columbia Pictures press release reveals that Webb is set to direct The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The press release also confirmed that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone would reprise their respective roles.

The Amazing Spider-Man
Directed by Marc Webb
Written by James Vanderbilt
Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary
Sony | Columbia Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 138 Minutes
Release Date: July 3, 2012

Who would have thought a Spider-Man film without Mary Jane Watson, Norman Osborn, and J. Jonah Jameson would end up being the web-slinger’s definitive adventure? With Marc Webb‘s The Amazing Spider-Man, the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler is taken “back to formula” with a spectacular reboot.

When Joel Schumacher’s 1997 film Batman & Robin completely destroyed the Batman franchise, it took Warner Bros. eight years to resurrect the caped crusader. It took a colossal, rubber-nippled failure to give birth to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and I think we can all agree it was worth revisiting the Batman mythos.

Similarly, Sam Raimi’s 2007 movie Spider-Man 3 ruined Marvel’s most popular (and profitable) superhero series beyond repair. The reason comic book characters like Batman and Spider-Man have survived for decades is because they are constantly re-imagined by new writers and artists. It took Ang Lee’s underwhelming Hulk to bring us The Incredible Hulk, which ultimately led to Mark Ruffalo’s excellent portrayal of the character in The Avengers.

A movie studio’s marketing team generally releases tiny and sometimes insignificant clips to movies to drive up public interest, which hopefully in turn will make some amazing box office numbers. But when does it become too much? Is 5 minutes worth marketing clips too much? 10 minutes? What about 25 minutes worth of footage?

Well apparently Sony has cross that threshold and released 25 minutes worth of footage from The Amazing Spider-Man. Not consecutively of course. But it was just enough for someone to piece together and make a condensed version of the full movie. Check out the video below.

Oh and big spoilers will follow.