Ashton Kutcher Dropped out of the Running for Brett Ratner’s Superman Because of Doubts in His Acting
Ashton Kutcher was once in the running for a Superman film way before Henry Cavill put on the cape. But the actor felt audiences would’ve never bought him as the man of steel in hindsight.
Ashton Kutcher once auditioned for Brett Ratner’s Superman
Many directors took a crack at adapting Superman for the big screen before 2006’s Superman Returns. One of those actors was Rush Hour filmmaker Brett Ratner, who auditioned several Hollywood stars for the role. This included That 70’s Show star Ashton Kutcher, who even screened in the suit for the director.
“I wore the Superman suit,” Kutcher once told MTV News (via Comic Book Movie). “I did a screentest in the Superman suit. There is footage of my audition out there, with Keri Russell, who was reading Lois Lane. There’s me in a Clark Kent outfit, then there’s me in a Superman outfit.”
The actor went on to say that donning Superman’s look felt out of place.
“I hadn’t worked out or done anything right…I was like a rail with fake muscles. It looked funny,” he said.
In an interview he did with Details (via Irish Examiner), Kutcher asserted that he wasn’t sure he had the right chops to play Superman.
“Could anybody f***ing take me seriously as Superman? Let’s be honest about that,” he said.
The sometimes scathing reviews he’d read regarding his acting didn’t help with his confidence at the time.
“I’ll read how s****y they think I am. I don’t necessarily think all the critics are wrong … I don’t think I’m that good,” Kutcher said. “And they don’t think I’m that good. So I’m not pulling that feeling out of my a**. They’re just backing up that feeling that I already have about myself.”
Brett Ratner wanted Josh Hartnett to be Superman after Ashton Kutcher
With Kutcher out of the running, Ratner turned to another up-and-coming actor at the time in Josh Hartnett. Like Kutcher, Hartnett also tried on the superhero suit in front of Ratner. But Hartnett didn’t take to the role, either.
”The decision was a struggle. But I just never really wanted to play Superman,” Hartnett once told Entertainment Weekly. ”It’s probably the biggest [-budgeted movie] ever — and because it was planned as a trilogy — it was three films [over] 10 years or something like that. It was a bigger commitment than I was willing to make.”
According to the publication, other actors like Matthew Bomer, Paul Walker, and Brendan Fraser were also being considered. For Ratner, picking the right Superman was perhaps the hardest part of his gig.
“This has been a very difficult movie to cast — it’s a big role and the actor has to be able to play to two distinct roles,” Ratner said. “It’s a long commitment, but we’ve only offered it to one person so far. We are still in the process of evaluating the best candidate for the part, and we want to take the time to make sure that we get it right.”
Brett Ratner was upset with what happened to his Superman project
Ratner never got the chance to realize his vision of Superman. Bryan Singer was picked to helm a feature about the hero, then Zack Snyder brought his own take to the big screen. Speaking with IndieWire, however, Ratner gave a taste of what his Superman film would’ve been about.
“Mine was J.J. Abrams‘ script. It basically took place on another planet, on Krypton,” Ratner said.
Although Ratner was disappointed with how things turned out, he was relieved Singer’s Superman went in a different direction than his.
“I was upset. I went to do X-Men and Bryan did Superman Returns. I was happy that Bryan didn’t do the J.J. Abrams script, because then it would have looked like I failed. And he just did a new version of the Dick Donner Superman,” he said.
