Originally Posted by
Mister Mets
Gotta agree here. Putting marketing over story is putting the cart before the horse.
The leads are changed a bit, but they're still recognizable.
The supporting characters sometimes seem to just have the role but not the personality. This makes sense because it's Spider-Man's story, not Ned's.
Regarding Ned and Ganke, that comparison gets a little messy. I think they picked the name Ned Leeds because they need a friend of Peter Parker's who was not Harry Osborn or Flash Thompson. I don't know if they intentionally chose someone similar to Ganke. My guess is that during casting, they felt Jacob Batalan was right for the role. The producers were open about reflecting a more diverse New York City, and when casting Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter Parker's a white guy, the two love interests are African-American and the rival is Latinx, so that creates an opening for an Asian-American best friend.
A further wrinkle is that Ganke is Korean-American, while Jacob Batalan is Filipino-American. It's seen as acceptable to change white characters into minorities. It gets messy to change the ethnicity of a character who is a minority, or to ask an actor to play someone from a different ethnic group.
A recent trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home suggests MJ has a good relationship with her dad, so that's another difference between her and the 616 MJ.
The main similarities between Zendaya's MJ and the 616 MJ are that they're attractive women in love with Peter Parker, but that applies to pretty much every love interest in the Spider-Man comics.