3. Tobey Maguire - Peter Parker - Spider-Man (2002)
I don't know about you, but when I think of Spider-Man, I still think about Tobey Maguire (sorry Andrew Garfield), who fans later accepted as a great choice for the part of a nerdy superhero imbued with an arachnid's powers, having complained about the decision in the months before Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie actually hit theatres. And based on the initial reaction to said casting, people were super surprised as to how well he pulled it off. Maguire was originally considered to be wrong for the part in almost every way - he wasn't cocky enough, he wasn't nerdy enough, he wasn't muscular enough. You name it, and Spider-Man fans had made a comment as to how Tobey Maguire wasn't capable of doing whatever you named. In the end, though, the way that Maguire played the character struck a nice balance - he might have been a little wet, but most importantly he made Peter Parker somebody we could root for. Not to mention the fact that he buffed up to totally unbelievable levels - nobody was expecting that!