Before Spider-Man, Zendaya Was Rejected From A Prolific Disney Franchise

Zendaya got her start on TV, starring on the 2010 Disney Channel TV series "Shake It Up." The series followed Zendaya as Rocky Blue, along with her best friend CeCe Jones (Bella Thorne), as they pursued their dreams of becoming professional dancers. The series lasted for three seasons and 75 episodes, and Zendaya became a Disney Channel staple. She was only about 14 when the show began. 

After her big break, the young star made guest appearances on other Disney Channel shows like "Good Luck Charlie" and "A.N.T. Farm" before moving into the channel's TV movies "Frenemies" and "Zapped." In the middle of this, she also played a brief voice role in her first non-Disney film, voicing a pony in "Super Buddies." In 2015, she also landed the lead role in "K.C. Undercover," wherein she played a teenager who was secretly a spy. Zendaya eventually received significant mainstream attention for playing MJ in the 2017 film "Spider-Man: Homecoming." Given that she reprised her role in this year's billion-dollar hit "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," and also starred in the billion-dollar hit "The Odyssey," one can safely say that Zendaya is on Hollywood's A-list. 

But Zendaya's career might have taken a very different turn if things had gone the way she initially wanted. On the "Magical Rewind" podcast, Cornelia Frame, a casting VP at Disney, revealed that Zendaya had auditioned multiple times for the Disney Channel TV movie "Descendants." The "Descendants" movies were a big hit for Disney, and Zendaya really wanted to be part of them. Sadly, she was turned down. Not so sadly, though, she got "Spider-Man" instead. Everything worked out in the end.

About Zendaya and her auditions, Cornelia Frame said: 

"Zendaya did audition many times for 'Descendants,' and that was a big deal. It was a really big deal. She auditioned over and over and really wanted it. It just ended up not going her way. Now that I think about it, I'm like, 'Would Spider-Man have happened right at that same time?' Things happen for a reason, and you do often book this other thing that's amazing when you don't get something else."

Frame even noted that Zendaya's rejection from "Descendants" was for the best, even though it's easy to imagine the young actress being very disappointed at the time. Frame didn't say which role Zendaya was auditioning to play.

"Descendants," for those over the age of, say, 30, is a series of TV movies about the teenage children of famous villains from Disney's animated features. In the first movie, released in 2015, we follow the fates of Evie (Sofia Carson), Mal (Dove Cameron), Carlos (Cameron Boyce), and Jay (Booboo Stewart), the kids, respectively, of the Evil Queen from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," Cruelle de Vil from "One Hundred and One Dalmatians," and Jafar from "Aladdin." 

The series takes place in the United States of Auradon, which is ruled over by Belle and the Beast (Keegan Connor Tracy and Dan Payne) from "Beauty and the Beast." All the known Disney villains have all been banished to a magic-free slum, but Belle's son Ben (Mitchell Hope) sets up a program allowing the four main characters into Auradon for the first time, testing if they can enjoy an ordinary childhood away from their villainous parents. 

Zendaya may be on Hollywood's A-list for her roles in "Spider-Man" and "The Odyssey," not to mention the hit "Dune" movies, but she would have done just fine if her career had taken her into the fold of the "Descendants" movies instead. The 2015 film spawned a widespread franchise that included TV movies, shows, specials, and hit soundtracks. "Descendants 2" came out in 2017, "Descendants 3" in 2019, "Descendants: The Rise of Red" in 2024, and "Descendants: Wicked Wonderland" came out just this last July. They all involved hipster, updated versions of well-known Disney animated characters and their children. The most recent movie featured the children of the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland." 

There is also an animated spinoff called "Descendants: Wicked World," as well as several shorts, specials, and miniseries that serve as prequels and interquels to the movies proper. There was also a 2020 stage musical (!), and a touring rock concert that performed songs from both the "Descendants" and "Zombies" franchises. If you're 12 or 13, and you love going to Disneyland, these movies and shows are a big, big deal. It makes one wonder why Disney wanted to make the all-in-one 2023 centennial animated feature "Wish" when they already had the all-in-one Disney movie mash-up "Descendants." And, heck, they already explored those concepts in the 2011 series "Once Upon a Time." 

Diving into the "Descendants" universe is similar to unpacking all the details of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It seems that Zendaya was going to be deeply entrenched in a massive Disney franchise either way.