The closest that Billy Bob Thornton has ever gotten to a comic book property is voicing himself in an episode of DC’s Harley Quinn animated series, but apparently it got even closer than that once. Thornton recently shared that he was offered, yet refused, the role of a major villain in a Marvel movie, as well as a part in another prominent franchise. During an appearance on The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast, Thornton revealed that declined the role of Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. He also turned down the opportunity to play arms dealer Owen Davian in J.J. Abrams’ Mission: Impossible III.
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“I don’t have much interest in those kinds of roles,” Thornton said. “With the Green Goblin, I didn’t feel like getting up at 4 a.m. for five or six hours of makeup. And with Mission: Impossible III, I didn’t want to be the guy trying to kill Tom Cruise.”
The Sling Blade star also elaborated on why the prospect of playing a villain in the aforementioned movies was unappealing. “If you’re the bad guy in a big movie like that, audiences remember it forever. I prefer to keep things looser and less predictable.”
Thornton had already worked with Raimi on 1998’s A Simple Plan, in which he starred alongside Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda. The actor also co-wrote the screenplay for Raimi’s The Gift, the filmmaker’s last movie before he directed the Spider-Man trilogy; but their Spider-Man collaboration was not to be.
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As fans know well, the role of the Green Goblin/Norman Osborn was instead given to William Dafoe foor the 2002 Spider-Man film, which starred Tobey Maguire as the titular web-slinging hero. Dafoe reprised his role the two sequels as well and returned once again in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which saw the villain brought back from the dead and into the same universe as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in the MCU. In 2006’s Mission: Impossible III, Philip Seymour Hoffman ended up taking on the role of Davian.
Thornton’s refusal to play villains in the Marvel and Mission: Impossible franchises reflects the unfortunate reality of when fans harass actors who play the foes of popular heroes. For example, House of the Dragon‘s Fabien Frankel, Back to the Future‘s Tom Wilson, and The Walking Dead‘s Josh McDermitt have all been the targets of social media hate for their characters’ on-screen actions. It seems that the possibility of having a villainous persona in a blockbuster franchise attached to his celebrity didn’t appeal to Thornton. Instead, he’ll be better known for portraying a high school football coach in Friday Night Lights and an off-the-rails Santa Claus in Bad Santa.
