To celebrate today’s release of “The Man of Steel,” we would like to share some Superman movie trivia with you.
Superman’s history has been plagued with development hell so many times that a graveyard of actors can now claim that they were almost able to leap buildings in a single bound. And that’s not to say that Christopher Reeve got his big break easy, either! The truth is that almost every leading man in the 1970s was considered for the role. The same goes for the 1990s and 2000s.
Here is the handful of eclectic casting choices that almost were and nearly could have been.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
ROBERT REDFORD
BURT REYNOLDS
BRUCE JENNER
HARRISON FORD
NICOLAS CAGE
CHRISTIAN BALE
D.J. COTRONA
JOE MANGANIELLO
…And our favorite actor that never got the chance to don the blue tights – SYLVESTER STALLONE!
Two years before Superman was released, Rocky catapulted Sylvester Stallone into worldwide fame. Apparently the Italian Stallion screen-tested for the role, though he was deemed “too ethnic.” Other reports claim that Marlon Brando, who was paid a world record $3.7 million for two weeks of work on the picture, refused to let a rising star such as Stallone overshadow him.
Thus, we never got to hear, “Yo Lois, I can fly!”