Shailene Woodley is a very natural and versatile actress. She is able to make the most cliched roles relatable; as such when you see her perform these roles, you cannot help but fall in love with both her and her character, for she makes these roles seem fresh and realistic, as if a real person in that role would act (for example, her role as bookish nice girl Aimee in The Spectacular Now seems quite different from how that role would commonly be portrayed in most media, even those that like Spectacular Now strive to avoid the cliches in that the character seems like a real person that could very well be something more than just a "nerd"). This, among other amazing attributes that she conveys, makes her ideal for the role of Mary Jane in the Amazing Spider-Man movies.
Her real life morals, especially those pertaining to there "being more to a person than just one thing" (very poignant for a superhero movie), staying true to oneself, and not suffering from temptation would provide a great appendix vesseled through a character. These morals would flow through the Amazing Spider-Man Movie Universe quite well with its already deep morals of identity, hope, humanity, and redemption, among others.
The role as Mary Jane would offer her variety from her role in Divergent, as like Jennifer Lawrence with her Hunger Games & X-Men roles, she gets to play a kick ass leading protagonist in the former, and a major supporting character, who has just as much significance or even more, in the latter. J Law was able to get her scheduale to work out so she could play both roles, both of which are very different characters, and are what helped make her who she is today, her being well known to two franchises of different genres, added onto her already being famous among critics for her indy film roles.
Shailene is following in a similar suit, and could have a similar deal made, as she is currently only doing the Divergent sequels, and they only take about 4-5 months; They could always make the Spider-Man filming scheduale so that her scenes get filmed first, like how they filmed Scarlett Johansson's Avengers: Age of Ultron scenes first in order to accomodate her pregnancy. This has similarly happened with most actors in Hollywood who take on multiple major roles, like how Robert Rodriguez was able to film Antonio Bandaras' scenes for the second Spy Kids first, completed in a week, as "he had to go and work on another movie", and how they got Kevin Spacey's Superman Returns scenes (of which he was almost in arguably more than the S-Man hiself) to accomodate his duties as a theatre director. Mutually, Jack Nicholson's movie scheduales have to always be accomodated so he can always attend a home game of his favourite basketball team. Her good friend and co star, Miles Teller, was able to accommodate filming so that he could star in the Fantastic Four Reboot, and reprise his supporting role as Peter in the Divergent sequel,The Divergent Series: Insurgent, when both were filmed in different States, in around the same scheduling time frame.
The Amazing Spider-Man movies already have a terrific range of acting and great chemistry among the actors as one of its major highlights, of which is even greater than its already impressive action sequences. Shailene would make a great addition to the team, and coincidentally, she was already casted in the role, with the film makers and herself all stating that they LOVED working with her/together, so why let her go? If they keep her on, they can always reuse some of the footage shot for Amazing Spider-Man 2, like how they reused a deleted scene from The Avengers in Captain America: The Winter Solider, and some shots of Tortuga from the first Pirates of the Caribbean in the second one. This would save time and money.
It helps that Shailene also looks the part, closely resembling MJ's looks in the comics and Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon (it, alongside the comics in which it is based on provides a huge inspiration for the Amazing Spider-Man films). Like MJ, Shailene is feisty and is never afraid to be herself, always challenging others just as much as she challenges her own, making others perhaps discover a way to make them better people. Mary Jane also believes in a lot of the same morals that Shailene conveys, whether she be an actress or news reporter, remaining true to her dignity, and her many aforementioned morals, showing in some of her iterations that she can be more than a damsel in distress. She could be a great help to Peter with these morals, and as Shailene is someone who naturally endulges in these morals, they will feel authentic, piercing not only Peter's heart and mindset, but the audience's too. Peter could always use someone who is lively and fun, especially with the frustration in his current life; Shailene has experienced this personality portrayed to her character in The Spectacular Now. It is now her turn to portray it, already having showcased some of that in her other roles. On that note, many fans have stated that her performance in The Fault in Our Stars proves that she can pull off the role of Mary Jane. Her role in Divergent also dictates that she can pull off the self defense fighting that MJ is known to have, which at times have helped Spider-Man defeat his enemies!
Edited by Riku21Terr