The movie of Superman from 1978 starring Christopher Reeve was a reference in the genre of superheroes in the cinema. Over the years, there has been talk of other actors who could play that character, but what many do not know is that the ex-bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the names that sounded before Marlon Brando threw him out of the production.
The producers of the first Superman initially wanted a name actor to play the son of Krypton. The initial pool for the role were actors like Burt Reynolds, Sylvester Stallone, Paul Newman and Robert Redford. All of them ultimately turned down the role. This made the production team desperate. According to Tom Mankiewicz, the creative consultant, they found men with great physiques who couldn’t act or vice versa. Neil Diamond, Bruce Jenner, Nick Nolte, James Brolin, and James Caan also turned down the role. However, there was one actor who was very interested: Arnold Schwarzenegger. He even passed several casting calls before being turned down by Marlon Brando, who played Jor-El, Superman’s biological father in the film. (What happened to the muscles of ‘Superman’ Henry Cavill?).
Brando didn’t want Schwarzenegger because he thought the audience wouldn’t be able to understand what the actor was saying because of his accent. And this forced the producers of Superman to look for lesser-known actors and the chosen one was Christopher Reeve, the first and best Clark Kent surely.
