The Star Wars Actor Who Almost Played Spider-Man Before Tobey Maguire

Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy remains in the pantheon of great superhero films. Okay, maybe exclude "Spider-Man 3" from that mix, but it's about the sentiment here. However, while fans adore Tobey Maguire's version of the Web-Head, there almost was another Spidey in the form of Freddie Prinze Jr.

In the '90s, Prinze broke out as a star in high-profile teen movies like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "She's All That." The success rolled into the 2000s when he played Fred Jones in two live-action "Scooby-Doo" movies and secured roles in the mainstream TV shows "Boston Legal" and "24." "Star Wars" fans are likely to recognize Prinze, or at least his voice, from his role as beloved Jedi Kanan Jarrus in "Star Wars Rebels." Yet, maybe the role of Spider-Man would have trumped all of these achievements.

Speaking on his podcast "Prinze and the Wolf" (via Den of Geek), Prinze claimed there were only three people in the running when he met with Raimi to discuss the part of Spider-Man. However, when asked about his favorite parts about the character during the interview, Prinze prattled on for almost half an hour about Venom instead. "He was respectful and he was polite, but I could tell that we were on such different pages," Prinze said. Perhaps the actor was unaware of how much Sam Raimi didn't want Venom in his movies, inadvertently blowing his chances of playing the heroic web slinger.

Needless to say, Hollywood was in the Freddie Prinze Jr. business in the late '90s and early 2000s. As a result, it's unsurprising that the young actor was in the running to play Spider-Man. Even though he didn't get to spin a web of excellence, he almost received the chance to play an equally iconic superhero a few years later.

After the disappointing failure of 1997's "Batman & Robin," Warner Bros. went back to the drawing board to reconfigure the Dark Knight's next big screen adventure. One of the projects the studio considered was an adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's comic book series "Batman: Year One." Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky worked on a script with Miller, developing what some have since deemed the best "Batman" movie that never was.

Warner Bros. appeared excited about the project until the studio and Aronofsky hit an impasse over who would star in the movie. "The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr. and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix," Aronofsky told Empire. "I remember thinking, 'Uh oh, we're making two different films here.'" Eventually, Warner Bros. handed the Batmobile keys to Christopher Nolan, who cast Christian Bale as his Dark Knight, and the rest is history.