Spider-Man 4 Had X-Men Character Once Played by Aubrey Plaza as the Villain Before Jean Grey

Spider-Man 4 could have featured a different X-Men character as the villain instead of Jean Grey. New details reveal that Brand New Day had initially considered bringing in a character once played by Aubrey Plaza.

Chris McKenna made an appearance on a recent episode of The Bulwark Goes To Hollywood podcast. Having co-written Spider-Man: Brand New Day with Erik Sommers, McKenna shared some interesting details about the movie’s main villain. She revealed that a Shadow King-inspired character was proposed as a possible foe for Peter Parker.

McKenna said, “We had a whole story where he’s chasing someone who is the Shadow King, but we never call him the Shadow King. And then we had to sort of basically come up with our own mythos to explain his backstory so that it wasn’t the Shadow King. So we’re being waved away from basically any specificity towards any specific mutant.”

Aubrey Plaza previously portrayed the role of Shadow King in the FX superhero series, Legion.

Spider-Man 4 would’ve looked very different with Farouk as the villain instead of Jean Grey

Chris McKenna further shared how the story of Spider-Man: Brand New Day evolved during the film’s development. According to the co-writer, the original Shadow King, aka Amahil Farouk, was considered the villain who would not have a physical body, after his body was taken from him and hidden somewhere in New York City by others, since he was considered extremely dangerous. The character’s main goal would have been to find his body. However, as the writers developed the story, they realized that this plot had a problem.

McKenna stated, “You know, he’s trying to find his body. So we started developing it like that. Everyone started realizing, well, this isn’t very satisfying because just having a disembodied voice the entire time and not having a face-to-face villain, you kind of hit a wall at a certain point. And you can’t explore who the character is.”

The creators felt that a face-to-face connection was important. He added, “So much of Spider-Man’s stories are so great because of His connection with the villain and his telling Peter’s story through all the other characters, but particularly finding a villain that helps tell Peter’s story, it proved challenging.”

To address these issues, the story eventually moved in a different direction, with Jean Grey becoming the villain. “And then I remember getting a call, I think it was September of 2024. I just landed for a wedding in Boston. I was with my Little girl, and we were driving up to like a rehearsal dinner, and I got a call from the producer, and she said, ‘We got Jean Grey,'” shared Chris McKenna.

Originally reported on SuperHeroHype.

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