In a parallel universe, Josh Hutcherson got the role of Peter Parker in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. It’s been known for a decade that the Hunger Games star auditioned for the lead role, but when his action-packed audition video resurfaced in 2023, this infamous bit of what-if casting trivia took on another dimension. After all, in the age of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga, Hutcherson could easily appear as a Spidey variant á la Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire in No Way Home.
But what does Hutcherson think? In a recent interview promoting his new action-thriller The Beekeeper, the actor tells Inverse he’d be game to join the MCU as another strand in the Spider-verse.
“Potentially, yeah,” Hutcherson says. “I was a big Spider-Man fan all my life growing up from the old-school cartoons and stuff. But yeah, I'd be open to it, man. I'd throw some webs around.”
As for why he didn’t get the original role, which went to Garfield instead, Hutcherson is less confident in his answer.
“You never find out,” he says. “They just end up hiring somebody else. So I never found out why. I also do know that three weeks or so after I auditioned, I ended up getting Hunger Games, so it kind of worked out.”
Hutcherson went on to play Hunger Games character Peeta Mellark in all four movies from the original series. While Peeta plays a pivotal role throughout the saga, he’s perhaps best known for using his cake-decorating skills to seamlessly blend into the terrain of the Hunger Games — a plot point that many fans have questioned in the years since the movie’s release.
Reflecting on the role over a decade later, Hutcherson admits that even at the time, he questioned just how realistic Peeta’s camouflage really was.
“He's an artist,” Hutcherson says. “He's got the sense of color and touch and technique of painting. I don't know how he pulled it off. I mean, that's the truth. When I saw what they did, I was even like, Guys, this is pretty far. I don't know how long we're saying it took him to do this or where he found the materials, but alright, I'm down. But I'm just saying it's a push for me.”
Maybe in an alternate universe, it was Andrew Garfield who got to camouflage himself as a rock while Hutcherson suited up as Spider-Man. But while we doubt Garfield will be joining the Hunger Games franchise anytime soon, it seems possible that Marvel’s Spider-verse could expand to include one more actor who almost played the iconic role.
