Marvel/Sony has been looking for people of color as the supporting cast and the former Disney star was among the actresses quietly trying for the role.
- March 8, 2016
AceShowbiz -
Zendaya Coleman has just landed her biggest movie role yet. The "Shake It Up!" actress joins the latest "Spider-Man" reboot in a lead role but not as Mary Jane.
According to Deadline, Coleman will play a character named Michelle opposite Tom Holland's Peter Parker. There's no other detail about the character because the comic books have either Mary Jane Watson or Gwen Stacy as Parker's love interest. Michelle could be an adaptation of a comic book character or a new one created entirely for the movie.
THR reported that "Marvel/Sony had been looking to go heavily non-white with the "Spider-Man" supporting cast." When the project was first announced, it was speculated that the studio would put Miles Morales, the Latino version of Spider-Man, on the spotlight but that was not the case when Holland's casting was first announced in June 2015.
Holland will appear as the web-slinging superhero for the first time in the upcoming "Captain America: Civil War", on U.S. theaters May 6. Director Jon Watts confirmed that Parker would be 15 years old in this movie, much younger than Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's versions of Parker.
The film, which is yet to have an official title, is slated for July 7, 2017 release with Kevin Feige representing Marvel as a producer and Amy Pascal overseeing it for Sony.
