Imagining Tom Holland’s work schedule this year gives me hives, that boy is busy. He hasn’t released anything since 2023’s The Crowded Room, but next year he’s got Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, filming now, and Spider-Man 4, which is expected to film later this year. To that end—Stranger Things star Sadie Sink has been cast in the untitled Spider-Man film, in an undisclosed role.
That hasn’t stopped anyone from speculating wildly about who she could be playing, though. The prime suspects are Jean Grey or the “real” Mary Jane Watson (in this case “real” = “white”). I doubt either option is likely, though. For one thing, Zendaya is already MJ, and it’s only losers who can’t get over a non-white MJ who are looking for someone to replace motherf-cking ZENDAYA, one of the biggest stars on the planet. Marvel KNOWS they struck gold casting her, they’re not letting her go at the finish line.
As for Jean Grey, I can totally see Sink playing that character, I just don’t think they’ll debut a major character like that in a Spider-Man movie they have to share with Sony. I think it’s more likely she’ll play a secondary Spider-Man character like Gwen Stacy or Felicia Hardy. Given that Spider-Man 4 will deal with Peter Parker cut off from MJ and Ned, it would be a good time to introduce Gwen Stacy, Peter’s other girlfriend of note. And if audiences like Sink in the role, hey, the MCU then gets a live-action Spider-Gwen in the bargain. Win-win.
But speaking of booked and busy, y’all, Sadie Sink is BOOKED and BUSY. Millie Bobby Brown is the OG breakout star of Stranger Things, and she rightfully gets a lot of digital ink spilled about what she’s doing next (Enola Holmes 3 is filming this year), but Sadie Sink is also out here working like a madwoman. She’s got the dystopic musical O’Dessa coming to Hulu next week, the final season of Stranger Things due later this year, and she’s returning to Broadway for the first time in a decade to star in John Proctor is the Villain, a modern revisionist telling of The Crucible written by Kimberly Bellflower. It opens next month at the Booth Theater. Sadie Sink is a triple threat. She acts, she sings, she dances, she does movies, TV, and theater. She’s just 22. I cannot imagine what the next decade will bring for her.
Here is Sadie with Regina Hall at a screening of O’Dessa in New York.
