After the success of Rocky (1976), Sylvester Stallone lobbied hard to play Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman, but he was ultimately turned down (he was deemed "too Italian"). Stallone found out that Marlon Brando, who had casting approval, turned him down for the role, just as he had allegedly vetoed Burt Reynolds' casting as Sonny in Il padrino (1972). (Responding to that rumor, Brando told Playboy Magazine interviewer Lawrence Gobel, "Francis (Francis Ford Coppola) would never have cast Burt Reynolds.") Stallone subsequently went on Merv Griffin's talk show and denounced Brando, saying he had no respect for the superstar as an actor or as a man. This surprised many, as the early Stallone (as had the early Burt Reynolds) had clearly modeled himself after Brando, particularly Brando's characterization of Terry Malloy in Fronte del porto (1954) in his own role as Stanley Rosiello in Happy Days - La banda dei fiori di pesco (1974), a man named "Stanley" (a la Stanley Kowalski in Un tram che si chiama Desiderio (1951) and who had a coop of pigeons on his tenement roof (like Terry Malloy). This mimicry might have been one of the the reasons Brando reportedly had such antipathy for both actors. Stallone later explained that he felt that it was hypocritical that Brando, who stated on numerous occasions that he took the role of Jor-El simply as a paycheck and nothing more, vetoed him for the role of Superman. Unlike Brando, Stallone grew up emulating and idolizing Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman (and continues to) as well as having a great love for the comics mythology. Ironically, in his review for the Stallone film Rocky (1976), Roger Ebert called Stallone "the next Marlon Brando."

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