12 Least Successful Recastings Of Iconic Film Characters

5. Brandon Routh - Clark Kent/ Superman

Film: Superman Returns (2006) Replacing: Christopher Reeve Yes, there have been a million articles on the internet criticising Brandon Routh's portrayal of Superman. Yes, he's an easy target and yes, he's done very little besides Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to demonstrate his acting chops in his subsequent career. But the fact remains very few people would regard Routh's performance as the genuine article, and even fewer would consider him a worthy successor to Christopher Reeve. Obviously Reeve wasn't available to reprise his career-defining role: he became quadraplegic following a horse-riding accident in 1995 and died of a heart attack in 2004. Having dropped out of directing X-Men: The Last Stand to make the film, director Bryan Singer believed that it would be best to cast an unknown actor to play Clark Kent, having turned down Jim Caviezel from The Passion of the Christ. Routh was selected from a casting call of thousands, with Reeve's late wife Dana remarking on his physical likeness to Christopher. Superman Returns, like a lot of Bryan Singer's work, is very conflicted. It doesn't know whether it want to recapture the camp, idealistic spirit of Superman I and II, or present a more modern, emo Superman for the 21st century. But while much of its narrative issues can be laid at Singer's door, its biggest problem is Routh's total lack of charisma. While Reeve managed to make Superman interesting, balancing humour with integrity, Routh seems burdened by the responsibility of the role, lost in the masses of special effects and being nothing like as emotional as he should be. It may be easy to make Superman boring, but Routh manages to do it in spades.