Sadie Sink joins Spider-Man 4 cast — five characters the Stranger Things star may be playing

Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) has been announced as a cast member for the next Spider-Man film, making the casting announcement one of the first big confirmed details for the currently unnamed fourth Spidey MCU film.

It's a new status quo for Peter Parker (Tom Holland), following the heart-rending ending to his third outing. He’s now going it alone with his secret identity back intact and leaving his old pals behind. This means Zendaya will possibly have a more limited role in the fourquel, considering her busy schedule with the next season of Euphoria and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey coming soon. Is Sadie Sink here for Spidey-love-triangle potential?

The film also marks Destin Daniel Cretton’s second MCU film after the success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Theories are already circulating about who the Stranger Things star will be playing – now the X-Men and Fox characters are back in the fold after Disney’s acquisition of the studio, the range of characters she could play only widens.

For that reason, we’ve got some theories about who she might be cast as...

1. Felicia Hardy / Black Cat

Black Cat acts as an on-again, off-again love interest for Spider-Man, often pushing him to question his beliefs. Because the character is morally ambiguous at best, she bounces between love interest, ally, and enemy due to her need to always be on the rob—and Spidey is secretly a cheeky boy into that dangerous air.

Black Cat’s superhero abilities are focused on luck, marking those around her as ‘unlucky’, meaning things constantly go wrong for them. It will be interesting to see how this will be portrayed on screen when the character is introduced, maybe taking inspiration from Domino in the second Deadpool film. If Black Cat is in the movie, it would mark the first time we’ve seen the character adapted on the silver screen.

2. Gwen Stacy

Gwen Stacy has previously been played by Emma Stone in the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films and briefly by Bryce Dallas Howard opposite Toby Maguire in Spider-Man 3. We also saw Spider-Gwen, voiced by Hailee Steinfield in the Spider-Verse films, so the character is no stranger to being on the big screen — Emma Stone’s interpretation saw her story reach the same spine-snapping conclusion it did in the original comics.

Sadie Sink would be a welcome addition to the films and would easily slip into the role, whether the studio decides to go for the iconic blonde hair or not—it’s a perfect fit for one of Spider-Man’s most heartbreaking love stories.

Where the character has been seen so frequently in recent times and, given the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, this pick feels less likely than Black Cat. But either way, Spidey will need a love interest in this film, and Gwen is the obvious choice.

3. Jean Grey / Marvel Girl

Jean Grey is another character we’ve seen plenty of times on the big screen, admittedly with less success than Gwen. Fans have often considered Sadie Sink for the role. In the past, Famke Janssen and, more recently, Sophie Turner have taken on the role of one of the most powerful X-Men, with mixed success.

This suggestion would mix up the world, introducing one of the most iconic X-Men characters and mutants to the MCU without the rest of her X-pals. Seeing her without Wolverine, Cyclops, and the gang would be strange, but it would be a welcome look at how the MCU will handle the X-Men going forward.

4. Mary Jane Watson

Arguably, this is the least likely pick, despite Sadie Sink perfectly suiting the role, thanks to Zendaya’s character essentially already filling the role, if never really explicitly confirmed as the comic book character.

It would be interesting to see how a more comic-accurate interpretation would be handled, but it’s pretty clear Zendaya is this Spider-Man’s MJ... and also Tom Holland’s in real life, tooo.

5. Someone else… honestly anyone else

Marvel isn’t afraid of mixing things up with characters, as seen by the changes to Shang-Chi, The Mandarin, Ms. Marvel, Zendaya’s MJ and more. The next obvious tweak is the change coming to the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four, with Julia Garner taking on the role of a character who is traditionally an intergalactic male in the comics.

It’s a great way to reinvent well-known names from the comics and bring them into the 21st Century, so Sadie Sink might bring anyone to life with a depth of characters still yet to be brought to the screen. This interpretation of Spider-Man has still not seen plenty of characters brought, in from Harry Osborne to Morbius… hopefully it won’t be morphin time though.

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