11 Actors Auditioned to Play Spider-Man But Weren't Cast, Including a Musician & a Friend of Zendaya

Jake Gyllenhaal

Before he was cast in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Jake Gyllenhaal was in the running to replace Tobey as the web-slinging hero after he suffered an injury and was briefly fired.

“There are so many roles in my career where I was up against another actor, or something happened that possibly could’ve happened but didn’t happen but maybe it would have… Eventually my belief is when an actor’s played a character, particularly in a movie, the character’s theirs, and that’s that. But yeah [Tobey] hurt himself and there was talk. And there was a slew of actors [possibly up for the part], and I was one of them,” he told Yahoo Entertainment.