Spider-Man: 15 Actors Who Almost Played Major Roles

It is doubtful that having eight legs instead of two would have helped nab that elusive Oscar any earlier for Leonardo DiCaprio, but there was a time when the actor could have spun his box office magic into a Marvel web. A late '90s Spider-Man could have featured Leo as Peter Parker before the role went to Tobey Maguire, and went on to be the biggest movie of all -time (at that point).

The plan was to continue using Cameron's script ideas from that canned version. Even though Cameron was no longer on board to direct, and the pair had worked together on Titanic, who knows, maybe having DiCaprio on the cast could have lured the director back.

DiCaprio had previously been offered the part as Robin in Batman Forever, while he was also directly approached to be our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man - it seemed that DiCaprio felt the need to do some growing up first:

"That was another one of those situations, similar to Robin, where I didn’t feel ready to put on that suit yet."

Given his playful performance in Titanic, he could have made a great Parker, but who knows, maybe he has an aversion to lycra?