11 Actors You Didn’t Know Nearly Played Superman

2) Sylvester Stallone

He’s got the eye of the tiger… and heat and X-ray vision? Yup, as unlikely as it sounds, Rocky Balboa himself Sylvester Stallone was in the running for the Man of Steel before Christopher Reeve got the role in the 1978 movie. Stallone is actually a dedicated life-long fan of the character and lobbied hard for the part. Unfortunately, he had an enemy working against him.

Already cast as Kal-El’s father Jor-El was Marlon Brando, who had a very public ongoing feud with Stallone. With Brando having negotiated a lot of creative control on the movie, he was not about to let Stallone get the lead role. Apart from that, the producer Ilya Salkin also didn’t think the actor was right for the role, deeming him “too Italian.”