Nine times out of 10, nabbing the lead in a superhero movie does wonders for an actor’s career, and the men who have been fortunate enough to play Spider-Man are no exception. Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland are all household names thanks to their separate opportunities to don the signature red tights of the friendly neighborhood webslinger, and they beat out some steep competition to get there.
Like any franchise, there are always a number of actors in contention for any coveted role. In the case of Spider-Man, some of the guys in the running were already Hollywood A-listers, and who knows how their careers would have gone had they scored the part over the trio we’ve come to know and love.
Here, in no particular order, are nine of the actors who almost played the dual roles of Peter Parker and Spider-Man.
Timothée Chalamet
Perhaps unsurprisingly, teen heartthrob and Dune lead Timothée Chalamet was on the shortlist to play Peter Parker before the role ultimately went to Tom Holland. It’s pretty easy to see why producers would consider Chalamet for the role – he’s young, good looking, charismatic and the perfect age to play a teenage Parker.
He auditioned for Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2015, and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, said that he botched the audition.
“I read twice and I left sweating in a total panic. I called my agent Brian Swardstrom and I said, ‘Brian, I thought about this a lot and I have to go back and knock on that door and read again,’ and he told me the story of Sean Young and how, in an attempt to become Catwoman, [she] had scared everyone away when she showed up at the studio gates in costume.”
While it might have been interesting to see his take on the character, Chalamet and his career are doing just fine without it.
Leonardo DiCaprio
While he’s a little too old to play the character now, Leonardo DiCaprio was on the shortlist to play the webslinger way back when Sam Raimi was making the first Spider-Man movie. The almost-casting illustrates how difficult it really is to pick the right actor for such a prominent role.
DiCaprio, just like Chalamet, is an incredibly gifted actor who would have brought something incredible to the role. But was he too good for it? Would it have taken away from the movie? We’ll never know, but it does raise some interesting questions.
When DiCaprio was being considered for the role, director James Cameron was attached to it. The two famously worked together on Titanic, so there was already a chemistry there, but as DiCaprio told Empire Magazine, he didn’t get very far in the casting process.
“There was a screenplay. I know he was semi-serious about doing it at some point, but I don’t remember any further talks about it. We had a couple of chats. I think there was a screenplay that I read, but I don’t remember. This was 20 years ago!”
As for Cameron, he called the Spider-Man screenplay the “greatest movie I never made.”
Asa Butterfield
Asa Butterfield broke onto the scene after appearing in the Martin Scorsese film Hugo. He then appeared in what was supposed to be a huge franchise (Ender’s Game), but the movie version of the celebrated sci-fi novel never quite took with audiences.
That being said, in terms of demographics, Butterfield is an obvious choice for the role of Peter Parker. He was the right age and had some cache behind him from other films, but ultimately Butterfield didn’t get the role, which he later said he was pretty devastated about.
“Every so often there’s a part [that you really want] and it’s a script you love, and you kind of put your heart and soul into it, and you don’t get it. And it is tough and it is shit, but I often find that something even better comes out of it at the end. And so in the case of Spider-Man, I did [Sex Education], because I wouldn’t have been able to do both of those at the same time.”
Jake Gyllenhaal
That’s right ⏤ Jake Gyllenhaal, the handsome man with the sad cow eyes almost played Spider-Man. Of course, he ended up in the movies anyway as Mysterio, but that’s a far cry from Peter Parker.
After the blockbuster success of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire hurt himself pretty badly on the set of Seabiscuit. Spider-Man 2 was about to begin filming and the filmmakers didn’t want to delay it, so they had Gyllenhaal waiting to take over in case Maguire didn’t heal in time. There was also a rumor at the time that Maguire was fired, which Maguire himself spoke to in 2003.
“It’s not true that I was fired. Basically, I had some concerns, as did the studio, because the level of stunts are so much greater on the second picture than the first. We both wanted to make sure I could do it. So, we went through some tests in terms of me getting into harnesses and performing some of the stunts. We were pretty close to production, so I think things got blown out of proportion. We were three weeks out and we were making sure, or you could say questioning, whether I was able to do it. After I did the tests, we all felt good about it and off we went.”
Fortunately for Maguire fans (but unfortunately for Gyllenhaal fans), Maguire healed and the rest is history.
Edward Furlong
Back when James Cameron was potentially going to direct a Spider-Man movie, he also considered Edward Furlong for the lead. He had just worked with Furlong on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and it was a monster smash.
There were a few reasons for the cancellation of the movie, with one being that there was a key scene involving the World Trade Center. After the attacks on 9/11, the whole thing tainted the project and it never came to fruition. Another fun fact about what could have been: Cameron wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger for the role of Doc Ock, which would have been interesting.
Tom Cruise
Of course Tom Cruise was considered for the role of Spider-Man. He was (and is) one of the most bankable movie stars on the planet. Cast him as a paper bag in a movie called Attack of the Paper Bag and it would still probably make enough money to feed a small country.
The Spider-Man almost-scenario happened back in Cruise’s heyday – the 1980s. Cannon Films made an attempt to bring the webslinger to the big screen, and since Cruise had just had a smash hit with Risky Business, he was high on the list to star in it. Cannon developed the movie with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper and then with Missing in Action director Joseph Zito, but unlike Cruise’s blossoming career, it never came to be.
James Franco
James Franco, who ended up in the Spider-Man films as Harry Osborn, originally screen tested for Peter Parker. At that time, Franco wasn’t a big star, having only had modest success with various bit parts. His most visible role up to that point was in the cult hit Freaks and Geeks on Fox. Being cast as Parker’s best friend in the movie isn’t a bad consolation prize for not getting the lead role, but as Franco told The Paly Voice, he was still disappointed.
“I first auditioned for the role of Peter Parker, which went well. I found out I didn’t get it and I was disappointed. But then Sam Raimi, the director, called me, and we got along so well, and he asked me [if I wanted] the role of Harry. No one else auditioned for the role.”
Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger was one of the actors considered for the role of Spider-Man in the 2002 Raimi film. According to Sony producer Amy Pascal, the studio spoke at length with Ledger for the role, as it had worked with Ledger on a few previous projects. It wasn’t meant to be, however, but of course Ledger went on to make history as a different comic book character: the Joker from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. That role ended up being so iconic that Ledger posthumously won an Academy Award for it following his untimely passing.
Alden Ehrenreich
Before he got his big break playing one of the most famous Star Wars characters ever in the standalone film Solo, Alden Ehrenreich was considered for the lead role in the 2012 Spider-Man remake The Amazing Spider-Man.
He got pretty far in the casting process and even met with director Marc Webb, but ultimately it wasn’t meant to be. He got another shot to be in the sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but this time he was being considered for the role of Harry Osborn. That also didn’t come to fruition, but the lead role in a Star Wars movie about Han Solo isn’t a bad consolation prize.
The role of Harry Osborn eventually went to Dane DeHaan, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is widely considered a convoluted mess, so perhaps Ehrenreich’s rejection was for the best.