Jake Gyllenhaal Is the Real Star of <em>Spider-Man: Far From Home</em>
The latest entry in Marvel’s Spidey franchise has a welcome bizarre streak, thanks to a perfectly cast new caped crusader.
A moviemaking lifetime ago, before the dawn of cinematic universes and for comic-book intellectual property, Jake Gyllenhaal almost played Spider-Man. This was back in the early 2000s, when contract negotiations with Tobey Maguire got that Columbia Pictures briefly extended an offer to the hotshot young star Gyllenhaal to play the hero in . He never took the role and ended up having a much more interesting career (possibly as a result), turning in dynamic work, , and , and becoming that rare sort of character actor with leading-man looks. Which, of course, makes him perfect for a Marvel movie. Everything old is new again.
