10 Dying Acting Careers Saved By One Amazing Movie

8. Marlon Brando - The Godfather

Perhaps the most surprising entry on this list, Marlon Brando's career was in the pits before The Godfather came along. In the '50s he was the biggest movie star on the planet, with beloved hits under his belt like On The Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, but the '60s brought nothing but trouble.

Box-office bombs, valuing big paydays over quality scripts and constant stories of on-set issues saw him fall out of favour with the major studios, all of which recognised his talent, but viewed him as movie-making poison.

Consequently, when Francis Ford Coppola decided he wanted Brando for the key role of Don Corleone in The Godfather - a gangster epic Paramount Pictures was already worried about - the studio probably thought he was joking.

When it became clear he was dead serious, the execs were adamant that it couldn't happen. Too much money was on the line, Brando was too much of a liability, and despite his talent, audiences didn't flock out to see him anyway.

Committed to the casting, the producers put safety nets in place and Brando himself took a huge pay cut to ultimately convince the studio to take the risk. The rest, as they say, is history, and while Brando's career would fizzle out again eventually, this brought it roaring back to life for another decade.