Could the cockiest of '70s actors really convincingly played a mild mannered reporter? What Happened? The Smokey And The Bandit star has a history of passing on potentially great roles: he turned down Pretty Woman, Die Hard and Flashdance after all, but he has also been considered for some of the greatest geek-friendly roles in Hollywood. Not only was he up for Michael Corleone in The Godfather (with rumours that he was actually cast but fired when Marlon Brando wouldn't work with him), he was also considered for James Bond, Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Rocky, without success. You can also add Superman to that list, as Reynolds was eventually discarded as a possibility when Richard Donner decided he wanted someone less recognisable. Would He Have Worked? Shorn of his more recently trade-mark beard, the young Reynolds would have been the perfect look for Superman, thanks to a brief flirtation with a greaser quiff, but his on-screen persona would probably have been too jarring for Clark Kent, and picking an actor based on only one side of a duplicitous character is a disastrous plan. And as Richard Donner so astutely stated in later years, Reynolds would have brought a spirit that wouldn't have matched his vision of Superman:
Everyone said put Burt Reynolds in a Superman suit. Well, for a certain kind of movie where you want to camp it up, Burt Reynolds would have been wonderful.
