Spider-Man: No Way Home was one hell of a multiversal affair, with the spell Doctor Strange cast for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker bringing all kinds of people from the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb-helmed Spider-Man movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Contrary to the rumors that swirled around months before the movie’s release, Kirsten Dunst did not take part in the action as Mary Jane Watson. However, the actress sounds like she’s game to return to one of her most popular roles.
Kirsten Dunst starred opposite Tobey Maguire in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, with the first movie arriving two years after the actress’ turn as Torrance Shipman in Bring It On. It’s been 15 years since we last saw her as Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man 3, but in a conversation with Deadline, the actress was asked if she would have liked to play the character in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and she responded:
There's still time... Listen, no one’s asked me about anything, but this multi-universe just keeps going on and on. I feel like that could happen.
While working on the Spider-Man movies wasn’t a perfect experience for Kirsten Dunst, from the pay disparity with Tobey Maguire to standing her ground on not doing certain stuntwork that made her uncomfortable, overall it sounds like she enjoyed her time as Mary Jane Watson. After all, if she truly wanted to leave that corner of her career far behind her, she wouldn’t have left a proverbial door open for her to return. Following Maguire’s Spidey return in Spider-Man: No Way Home, if he’s brought back as the Webbed Wonder for another movie, seeing him next to Dunst’s Mary Jane again would kick the nostalgia up a notch.
Spider-Man 3 put Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson’s relationship through the wringer, but by the end of the movie, following the death of Harry Osborn, they began the reconciliation process. While Spider-Man: No Way Home didn’t share what Mary Jane Watson is specifically up to these days, Tobey Maguire’s Peter did say that he and his Mary Jane were able to make their relationship work after a long time of it being “complicated.” In other words, she’s still in his life, so it wouldn’t be difficult to whip up a scenario where either Mary Jane is transported alongside her Peter to another corner of the multiverse, or we reunite with her in the Raimiverse if someone like Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is thrown out of their home reality.
As far as the live-action Spider-Man film franchise goes, all we know at the moment is that there’s a fourth Tom Holland-starring movie in active development. That said, Andrew Garfield is open to reprising his version of the Web-Slinger again, and while Tobey Maguire hasn’t commented on if he’d want to play his Spidey for a fifth time, some fans believe that we might see him in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Should it be officially announced someday that Maguire will reprise Spider-Man again, you can be sure there are a lot of fans who would to see him and Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson together again.
Until then, you can watch Spider-Man: No Way Home in the comfort of your own… well, home, on digital starting March 22, and the Blu-ray and DVD copies will be released on April 12. As for Kirsten Dunst, she’s scored a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Netflix’s The Power of the Dog, which costars her real life husband Jesse Plemons, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Thomasin McKenzie.
