3. Parker On Assignment
Columbia Pictures, MarvelIf negotiations had moved a bit faster, Marvel Studios might have gotten permission to use Spider-Man characters again in time for them to appear in this movie, but it still would've been too soon to cast a new Peter Parker. On the other hand, J.K. Simmons is the only actor ever to portray J. Jonah Jameson in a feature film, and if you've seen a single scene he's done as the fast-talking blowhard boss, you know why. After Tony created Ultron and the Hulk went wild, Jameson might have become almost as anti-Avengers as he is anti-Spider-Man. A quick phone conversation with an unseen Peter Parker would have set up a clear role for Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War - as a spy for the Bugle, trying to get pictures of the Avengers to go with Jonah's scare headlines. It'd be a little ethically dubious, but he might have needed the money for Aunt May's medicine. That would have been a "Spider-Man vs. Avengers" story we've never seen before.
Why It May Not Have Happened: Negotiations didn't move fast enough, and casting Jameson before Spider-Man is outside-the-box thinking Hollywood rarely employs.