Jake Gyllenhaal almost played Spider-Man before being cast as Mysterio
Spider-Man: Far From Home is back in UK cinemas, with fans getting the chance to relive the action as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) finds his school trip across Europe disrupted by villain Mysterio, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.
What you might not know is that Gyllenhaal’s involvement in the billion-dollar smash hit marked the end of a long journey with the superhero genre, which began long before the conception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In the early 2000s, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films were part of the revolution of comic book movies that led to the dominance of Marvel in the 2010s.
The exciting origin story of Tobey Maguire’s Spidey was a success with audiences, making a sequel all but inevitable. During pre-production of 2004’s Spider-Man 2, however, things hit a roadblock when Spider-Man himself was almost out of the picture.
Maguire had aggravated an old back injury while filming 2003’s Seabiscuit, and Raimi had heard the actor could be paralysed if he sustained any more injuries to it — not wanting to risk such a tragedy, Raimi approached Gyllenhaal.
The actors had a similar look and career trajectory at that point, making the Donnie Darko star a natural replacement, Raimi once told SuperHeroHype: "I’ve been a great admirer of his work. He was gonna think about it. He said he’s honoured that I asked, he’d think about it. And before he told me whether he would do it or not, I got a call from Tobey’s manager and agent."
That call would reassure that Maguire’s injury was not as bad as the director had heard, and Spider-Man 2 went ahead with its original cast, leaving fans of Gyllenhaal to wonder what might have been.
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It wouldn’t be the only near-miss in Gyllenhaal’s career when it came to playing heroes on the big screen. He was considered to play Rick Flagg in 2016’s Suicide Squad after original pick Tom Hardy left the role, only for him to turn it down and for Joel Kinnaman to be cast.
He played a superhero of sorts in fantasy adventure Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but the 2010 film disappointed at the box office and led to the actor spending many years making smaller, independent dramas like 2012’s End of Watch and 2014’s Nightcrawler.
Most incredibly, the actor may even have faced off against Brokeback Mountain co-star Heath Ledger, as Gyllenhaal was considered for the part of Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, missing out in the final stages to Christian Bale. He was philosophical about losing the part, crediting Nolan with calling him personally to explain why Bale was chosen.
"I went from them going ‘hmm, we’re not so sure about him’ to a call saying ‘we were really thinking about you for this’” he explained in an interview with SiriusXM. "And I’m like 'alright, so I should just keep going!'"
He did keep going, and in 2019 he not only entered the world of Spider-Man, he became a vital part of it. He plays Quentin Beck aka Mysterio, someone first presented as a new hero from another universe sent to help Peter Parker (Tom Holland), but is in fact an embittered ex-employee of Tony Stark who uses the tech he pioneered to masquerade as an Avengers-level hero.
The actor revealed that he was intent on Mysterio being more than a one-dimensional villain, he explained to Rotten Tomatoes: "His logic makes a lot of sense. He knows the power of these things that Tony (Stark) has created, and the power of The MCU, and he respects it.
"I don’t think there’s a moment where he doesn’t respect it, and I think he just needs to make sure all that this work that he’s done with Tony is in the right hands. That, really, is the intention I had the entire time, and I don’t think that’s a bad intention. It gets bad when he feels like in order to get that message across, people need to get hurt."
Of course, Parker/Spider-Man does save the day, but Mysterio leaves a parting message that cannot be undone. In a doctored video broadcast to the world, Mysterio frames Parker for his crimes, and reveals his true identity.
He essentially becomes the catalyst for everything that follows in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Spider-Man seeks out Doctor Strange to undo Mysterio’s action, unintentionally ripping open the Multiverse in the process. From a standby Spidey to his most impactful villain, Gyllenhaal had truly come full circle.
In the years following his success, the actor showed the same versatility of roles that brought him to prominence. In 2022, he was both an animated hero for Disney in Strange World, and a criminal on the run in Michael Bay thriller Ambulance.
He also revived an 80’s classic in the 2024 remake of Road House, playing an MMA fighter turned bouncer. The call of The Cape is still there, however, with Gyllenhaal confessing recently that he would consider it "an honour" to play Batman in James Gunn’s new DC Universe.
"Those types of things and those roles are classics” he enthused to Screen Rant, comparing them to Shakespearean parts. So, the man who at one point seemed destined to miss out on superhero infamy may still get to save the world again!
Spider-Man: Far From Home is back in UK cinemas from Friday, 13 September.
