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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Re-creating Brando


Lex Luthor confronts Jor-El, played by the late Marlon Brando, in
Derrik J. Lang Associated Press

In Hollywood, it seems you really can live forever.

In the new “Superman Returns,” you might recognize Marlon Brando’s mug inside the Fortress of Solitude – even though “The Godfather” died in 2004.

That’s because director Bryan Singer used footage of the Hollywood legend from the original 1978 film to reprise his role as Superman’s biological father Jor-El.

“I think Bryan thought that nobody embodied Jor-El better than Marlon Brando himself,” says “Superman Returns” executive producer Chris Lee.

“So the question became, first: Would it be possible to negotiate a situation with the estate for the use of his likeness? Even though it’s a Warner Bros. film, there’s all these rules you have to negotiate separately.

“And two: How would you integrate that?”

The answers: Yes, and digitally.

(Skip down if you don’t want to the scene spoiled.)

Culled from footage filmed in the 1970s, Brando’s cameo appears in the beginning of “Superman Returns” and is less than a minute long.

Digital effects company Rhythm and Hues was tasked with constructing the computer-generated Brando and projecting his illuminated head inside several crystals from several different angles within Superman’s arctic headquarters.

“We didn’t do what we normally do, which is take the actor and put them in a CyberScanner and scan their face,” explains visual effects supervisor Derek Spears. “Due to obvious reasons, we couldn’t do that.”

And because some of the old footage was just audio or at an angle they couldn’t use, Spears and his team had to bring Brando back to life inside their computers for the haunting scene.

(OK. You can start reading again.)

“I suppose if Marlon Brando were still around and he wanted to play Jor-El again, we probably would’ve hired him,” says executive producer Lee. “But he wasn’t available.”

Resurrections in Hollywood – of the 6-feet-under, not my-career-is-so-over variety – are nothing new.

John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Fred Astaire, Fred and Ethel Mertz from “I Love Lucy” and most recently Elvis Presley have all appeared in commercials hawking products, services and the state of Tennessee.

Sometimes the revivals go deeper:

“In 1993, Brandon Lee was accidentally shot and killed on the set of “The Crow” before filming was completed. For the remaining scenes, a body double stood in for Lee and his face was CGIed onto the double.

“Before the third season of “The Sopranos” began shooting in 2001, the actress who portrayed Tony Soprano’s mother, Nancy Marchand, died. Before killing her character off the show, she was digitally inserted into the third season’s second episode.

“Although a different actor provided the voice, archive footage of Sir Laurence Oliver was used to create the evil Dr. Totenkopf in the sci-fi extravaganza “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” in 2004.

The man who brokered that Oliver cameo – and who’s made representing dead celebrities a lucrative business – is Mark Roesler, chairmen and CEO of CMG Worldwide, a marketing and talent agency with a client list that includes such dead celebs as James Dean and Babe Ruth. He says casting the deceased is good business.

“It’s a property with boundaries now unlike a personality that might have an up or a down or may have some controversy that evolves,” says Roesler.

“You know what the playing field is when you utilize a Marilyn Monroe or James Dean. There are no surprises. You don’t know if you use a Michael Jackson what might happen.”

Relying on CGI to revive dead stars has evolved from necessary solution (in the case of Lee) to creative enterprise (Singer’s desire to use Brando again).

Isn’t casting an actor who’s been dead for less than two years in a new movie blasphemous – or, you know, at least a little weird?

In the case of Brando as Jor-El, executive producer Lee doesn’t think so. It’s homage.

Jor-El has been dead for many thousands of our years. He blew up on the planet Krypton. (Brando, however, died of lung failure in 2004.)

Lee says Jor-El’s crystalline appearances are simply home movies from beyond the grave – so the Brando cameo works on many levels.

“In the studio era, it was verboten to distribute films by a star who had died recently,” says Rollins. “There was a big debate about the release of ‘Steamboat Round the Bend’ and “In Old Kentucky’ by Will Rogers. The films were coming to market just after his death.

“The bosses at Fox decided that he was such a beloved figure that the warmth of memory and nostalgia would win out over the morbidity of seeing a recently deceased star on the screen.”