Sadie Sink has been cast to star opposite Tom Holland in “Spider-Man 4” – but who could she play?
Sink is the first major actor to join the project and her announcement led to much speculation as to who she could play in the Marvel sequel, which will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (“Shang-Chi”) and is due to start filming this year.
The “Stranger Things” star has been at the top of fans’ wishlist for a certain phoenix-fueled X-Man for years now, but that’s far from the only option for the actress.
Below are three of the top running possibilities for Sink to play in the upcoming MCU sequel and how she could possibly be incorporated.
Jean Grey
Sadie Sink has been the fan-favorite choice to play Jean Grey since the X-Men movie rights shifted back to Marvel when Disney bought Fox. With Peter heading into his college years, it’s certainly possible that Jean – who was a founding member of Charles Xavier’s X-Men when they were young – could be a classmate or someone he grows close to after losing both Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya) when he wiped the world remembering him in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” And bringing the X-Men into the MCU is a priority for Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige.
Mary Jane Watson
This one feels unlikely because of the needless confusion it would bring about. Some fans believe she has been cast as Spider-Man’s iconic love interest Mary Jane Watson. In the post-“Endgame” world, nobody should put any head-scratching decisions past the MCU braintrust but with Zendaya’s character not canonically Mary Jane but being called MJ, it would certainly be an odd choice. But maybe Peter is just chasing a carbon copy (clone?) of what he lost.
Gwen Stacy
Sink does not need to be typecast as an iconic red head just because of her own hair color. If Zendaya’s MJ represents one half of Peter’s love life, then Gwen Stacy represents the other. Gwen’s popularity has skyrocketed in the past five years thanks to the “Spider-Verse” films – where she is voiced by fellow MCU star Hailee Steinfeld. She appeared in live action back in the two “Amazing Spider-Man” films in the 2010s played by Emma Stone, and previously Bryce Dallas Howard portrayed the character in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3.”
Gwen also makes a lot of sense to appear in Peter’s “college” years where MJ represented his high school years. Although some of her most famous storylines were incorporated elsewhere – including her famous death via Green Goblin being co-opted by Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in “No Way Home” – there would be plenty of new ways to incorporate her and her arachnid alter ego.
