The Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson recalls being one of the finalists to headline Sony‘s The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012.
While promoting his latest role in The Beekeeper during an interview with Inverse, Hutcherson revealed that he auditioned to play Peter Parker in the Spider-Man reboot helmed by Marc Webb. Ultimately losing the role to Andrew Garfield, Hutcherson remains mystified about what he was missing in his audition.
“You never find out,” Hutcherson said. “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.”
Despite Spider-Man being a lost opportunity for Hutcherson, his love for the character never waned. The actor revealed he would be open to playing a variant in the Spider-Verse. “Potentially, yeah,” Hutcherson said. “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.”
At the time of the reboot’s casting, Hutcherson was on a short list of young actors including Alden Ehrenreich and Jamie Bell. Garfield was cast on the strength of his work in Sony’s The Social Network and went on to earn raves from Marvel fans for his comic-accurate portrayal of Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Hutcherson found success as Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games franchise and most recently Five Nights at Freddy’s.
Andrew Garfield’s run as Spider-Man
Garfield’s tenure as the Wall-Crawler lasted two movies in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The polarized reception of the sequel and Garfield’s dissatisfaction with the direction of the franchise led to Sony’s partnership with Marvel Studios to reboot Spider-Man in the MCU with newcomer Tom Holland. Eventually, the two actors alongside original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire made an epic team-up as part of the multiverse premise of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are both available to stream on Disney+.
