Back in the 1970s, Marlon Brando was hot property in Hollywood — so much so that in 1976, for 20 minutes of screentime in the superhero movie Superman, he was paid $3.7 million. He played Jor-El, the titular character’s on-screen father, while Reeve, who played the Man of Steel, was paid $250,000 as the star of the very same movie.
But when it came to filming the DC movie, one of Brando’s other films came back to haunt him: namely, the highly-controversial drama movie Last Tango in Paris. Pre-production for Superman started in Italy, but plans for shooting in the European country were abandoned once it emerged that there was a warrant out for Brando’s arrest.
This is because he faced an obscenity charge for his role in Last Tango in Paris, which included a highly-controversial rape scene. However, the pre-production problems with Superman didn’t stop there.
As reported by Variety, production for the troubled action movie moved to England, but this then led to the removal of Guy Hamilton as director because of his “tax exile” status in the country. This in turn led to Richard Donner taking over as director, but he was later fired and replaced with Richard Lester, who directed the second Superman movie (both the first film and sequel were filmed simultaneously).
A number of actors have taken on the Man of Steel moniker over the years, so if you want to get back to basics, check out our guide to all the Superman movies in order. Want to know when his last appearance was? Check out is Henry Cavill’s Superman in Black Adam?