When Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 failed to become a reality, Sony Pictures decided to reboot the franchise and enlisted Marc Webb to retell the wall-crawler's origin story in The Amazing Spider-Man. "The Untold Story" ultimately proved mighty familiar following reshoots but Andrew Garfield's stint as Peter Parker across two movies earned him a devoted fanbase.
Among the actors considered for the role was The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson. The actor, who recently found box office success with his lead role in Five Nights at Freddy's, was recently asked by Inverse whether he'd still like to star in a Marvel project...perhaps as a Spider-Man Variant.
"Potentially, yeah," Hutcherson told the site. "I was a big Spider-Man fan all my life growing up from the old-school cartoons and stuff. But yeah, I'd be open to it, man. I'd throw some webs around."
As for why he wasn't cast in 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, the actor admits he was never told why Sony didn't want him to play the character.
"You never find out," he says. "They just end up hiring somebody else. So I never found out why. I also do know that three weeks or so after I auditioned, I ended up getting Hunger Games, so it kind of worked out."
It's hard at this stage to imagine anyone other than Garfield as Spidey in those movies and, while Hutcherson would have been an interesting choice, it's hard to say whether he'd be a good fit for Peter.
It all worked out for him, anyway, as he'd go on to land a lead role in The Hunger Games franchise as the heroic Peeta Mellark.
The Amazing Spider-Man starred Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. The movie explored the web-slinger's origin story, spending more time focusing on his high school years and the discovery of his powers after he was bitten by a genetically modified spider created by his father.
The story revolves around Peter's quest to uncover the truth about the disappearance of his parents, leading him to Oscorp and an encounter with Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), who later transforms into the villainous Lizard.
Both Garfield and Ifans reprised their respective roles in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The former is expected to return in a future project, most likely the Multiversal Avengers: Secret Wars.
Do you think Hutcherson would have been a good Spider-Man?