Casting Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman – or just Zendaya – in Spider-Man: Homecoming caused all sorts of fuss. The belief was that she was playing Mary Jane Watson, MJ, the future girlfriend/wife/not-a-wife of Peter Parker. Also, she wasn't white, which for some people is still a thing. Well, she denied that she was playing Mary Jane, she was playing a new character, Michelle, but some people just didn't believe her. No matter how many times she said it.

Well, we can clear it up, once and for all. She is not playing Mary Jane Watson. Zendaya is playing Michelle. And she's not even close to Peter Parker in the film. Indeed, they spend much of the movie saying what an outsider Michelle is. She is on the Academic Decathlon team with Peter and the others but isn't really close to them.

However…. towards the very end of the film, the Decathlon team need a new team leader and the teacher picks Michelle.  At which point she tells them "my friends call me MJ." So… she isn't Mary Jane Watson. But she is MJ. And she may well be playing a similar role in Peter Parker's future. So is everybody happy now?

Can you wait for the sequel? Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man would be a good bet considering how many times the phrase gets used in Homecoming…

Spider-Man: Homecoming is co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film is directed by Jon Watts, with a screenplay by the writing teams of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, Watts and Christopher Ford, and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. The film starsTom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Tyne Daly, Marisa Tomei, and Robert Downey Jr.

Spider-Man: Homecoming premiered in Hollywood on June 28, 2017 and will be released in the United States on July 7, 2017, in 3D, IMAX, and IMAX 3D and in the UK on the 5th July. A sequel is scheduled to be released on July 5, 2019.