“I don’t know what happened”: the role Anthony Hopkins lost to Marlon Brando, who was dead
There was absolutely no shame whatsoever in an actor losing out on a role to Marlon Brando, since he’s widely viewed as the consensus pick when it comes to naming the single greatest actor of all time.
However, there’s got to be at least a little bit of shame felt when an actor is all set to play a part in a picture, only to have the opportunity snatched away from them and be replaced by Brando, who happened to be dead at the time, which would at least have made him easier to control.
Like almost all of his peers, especially the ones in his age range, Anthony Hopkins was equal parts enamoured and fascinated by the method savant, who revolutionised the art form in the 1950s and became the measuring stick by which all big-screen thespians would forever be measured.
They never found themselves going head-to-head in casting calls, mostly because Brando had entered his reclusive and can’t be arsed phase by the time Hopkins decided to try his luck in America, but the latter always had a mutual respect for the former, even if he thought some of his work was flaming garbage.
It can’t be a nice feeling for any star to be told they’ve got a part, only for that part to be taken away from them by a dead person, not that the deceased had any say in the matter, unless the filmmakers or the studio held a séance to ask Brando if he’d be interested in reprising one of his most lucrative gigs.
In the early 2000s, Hopkins was signed and sealed as Jor-El in Superman: Flyby, written by JJ Abrams and set to be directed by Brett Ratner. When that version of the comic book adaptation fell apart at the seams, it mutated into Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, with the production swapping one wrong ‘un for another, as everyone would discover.
Jor-El remained part of the film, but instead of bringing in an Academy Award-winning veteran to add some heft and gravitas to what was a very minor role in the grand scheme of things, unused footage and digital trickery were employed instead to give Brando one last silver-screen hurrah from the great beyond.
“I don’t know what happened,” Hopkins remarked. “I think Brett was out of line with something, and they said thank you very much.” That’s what happened to the Rush Hour director’s career eventually anyway, but it left Hopkins out in the cold, with the role he’d been promised filled by a re-animated Brando.
On the plus side, he did get his shot at playing a superhero’s old man in Thor, and as much as he did it for the money, Kenneth Branagh’s movie was instrumental in saving the erstwhile Hannibal Lector from the cinematic scrapheap.
