Andrew Garfield didn’t say it as a joke, although he disguised it as one. At 2013 Comic-Con, while the United States Supreme Court was advancing LGBT rights, the actor confessed to Entertainment Weekly that he had seriously spoken with producer Matt Tolmach about something nobody expected from Spider-Man.
His idea was simple and daring: for MJ to be a man. And not just anyone — he dreamed of Michael B. Jordan playing that role, opening the door to a bisexual Peter Parker. “Why can’t he be gay?”, Garfield asked, leaving the question hanging over the entire Marvel universe.
Sony never took the proposal seriously. Years later, in 2015, Garfield insisted, asking for a pansexual Spider-Man. In 2021, he brought it up again, almost resignedly. The idea is still there, waiting in some Hollywood drawer. 😅