Brando became tired of acting around the mid-1970s, so he was only willing to act as long as it paid well. Luckily for him the producers of Superman were so desperate to get a respected actor they were willing to pay anything. His deal for playing Superman's father Jor-El is still the stuff of legends; he got a $3.7 million salary, over ten percent of the grosses and he only had to work for twelve days. For that princely sum he appeared in the film for maybe ten minutes, though even with his silly costumes and the obvious fact hes reading off cue cards, he does give the role some class. He was so spoiled by the experience that he started demanding similar treatment on later films, where his intense lack of interest became more obvious. Brando cashing a cheque in such a high-profile way made it acceptable for other respected actors to do the same; which explains what eventually happened to Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
