The Superman Curse is a Hollywood urban legend that refers to a series of supposedly related misfortunes that have plagued the professional careers and personal lives of creative people involved in adaptations of Superman in various media, particularly actors who have played the role of Superman on film and television.
Alleged Victims of "the Curse"[]
Kirk Alyn[]
Kirk Alyn failed to find work after his time as Superman because he was too closely identified with the role. As a result, he was relegated to voiceovers, commercials, and uncredited screen roles. He later appeared as Lois Lane's father in the 1978 Superman film. Alyn had Alzheimer's disease later in his life and died in 1999 at the age of 88.
George Reeves[]
George Reeves' career similarly suffered from being so closely identified with the role of Superman. On June 16, 1959, days before his wedding, Reeves was found dead from a gunshot wound in his head at his home with his Luger near him. The death was officially ruled a suicide, but controversy surrounds the ruling, as Reeves' fingerprints were never found on the gun, and he was known to have had an affair with the wife of MGM exec Eddie Mannix. It was Reeves' death that inspired the conspiracy theories and the urban legend of a curse associated with the Man of Steel.
Christopher Reeve[]
Christopher Reeve, like Alyn and Reeves, was so closely identified with the character that it was difficult for him to get lead parts in other films. Reeve was also paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown off of his horse in a cross-country equestrian riding event on May 27, 1995. Reeve died on October 10, 2004 at the age of 52, just fifteen days after his birthday. No official autopsy was performed, but both Reeve's wife Dana and his doctor John McDonald believed that an adverse reaction to a drug caused Reeve's death.
Marlon Brando[]
Marlon Brando's private life was notoriously tumultuous, involving multiple marriages and divorces. In 1990, Brando was in the center of a media firestorm after two of his children, son Christian and daughter Cheyenne, were caught in tragedy, with Christian fatally shooting Cheyenne's boyfriend Dag Drollet after she claimed he was physically abusive towards her. Christian pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was imprisoned for five years; in an interview with The Times, Christian said that later revelations about Cheyenne's mental health had made him question whether she was ever beaten by Drollet. Brando himself admitted in court that he had failed his son and daughter.[1] Cheyenne herself also accused her father of abusing her as well, with her deteriorating mental health and worsening drug addiction problems leading to her committing suicide in 1995, which spurred Brando to retreat into and spend the rest of his life in seclusion. He died in July 2004, three months before Christopher Reeve.
Margot Kidder[]
Margot Kidder fought with the director of the Superman movies, so her part was minimized in later installments. She was also unable to get any other major parts because she was typecast as the damsel in distress.
In 1990, she was in a car accident that left her temporarily paralyzed. She could not work, which led to severe mood swings and depression. She began to have manic episodes and eventually had a severe breakdown in 1996. She became convinced that her previous husband was trying to kill her and began sleeping outside before going missing for several days. She was found by police in a paranoid and delusional state and sent to UCLA Medical to be treated. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which she channeled towards activism work for mental health research. Kidder continued to consistently work in film and TV, including a guest role on Smallville. She died on May 13, 2018 in Livingston, Montana after a drug and alcohol overdose. Her death was ruled a suicide.
Kidder was dismissive of the notion of a curse, remarking in a 2002 interview, "That is all newspaper-created rubbish. The idea cracks me up. What about the luck of Superman? When my car crashed this August, if I hadn't hit a telegraph pole after rolling three times, I would have dropped down a 50ft to 60ft ravine. Why don't people focus on that?"
Lee Quigley[]
Lee Quigley, the actor who portrayed baby Kal-El in the 1978 film, died in 1991 at the age of 14 from solvent abuse.
Richard Pryor[]
Richard Pryor (Gus Gorman in Superman III) was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. He died of a heart attack on December 10, 2005 at the age of 65.
Allison Mack[]
Allison Mack has stated she has had a difficult time getting substantial roles after Smallville concluded. She was also a member of NXIVM, a sex cult that posed as a multi-level marketing company and self-help service. In 2018, she was arrested on charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy in relation to NXIVM activities. She pleaded guilty to racketeering charges and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2021.[2]
DVD Crew of Superman Returns[]
The curse was invoked after three people involved in the creation of the Superman Returns DVD were injured. One of them fell down a flight of stairs, another was mugged and physically assaulted, and a third smashed into a glass window. Director Bryan Singer remarked, "My DVD crew absorbed the curse for us."
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster[]
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the writer and artist team who co-created Superman, sold the rights to their creation to DC Comics for a relatively small amount of money, in contrast to the amount of money the character has generated over the decades. Despite repeated efforts over the course of the rest of their lives to recover legal ownership of Superman and a share in the immense profits that the character brought for DC, DC's copyright on the character was renewed. By the 1950s, Shuster's worsening eyesight prevented him from drawing, and he worked as a deliveryman in order to earn a living; Siegel, meanwhile, continued to work for DC, albeit with no creative control over his output, and was then fired in 1966 after DC found out he was planning to launch another lawsuit to reclaim legal ownership of Superman.
In 1975, Siegel and Shuster launched a publicity campaign protesting DC's treatment of them. In the face of a great deal of negative publicity over their handling of the affair (and with the Superman movie coming soon), DC's parent company Warner Communications reinstated the byline dropped more than 30 years earlier and granted the pair a lifetime pension of $20,000 a year, plus health benefits. The first issue with the restored credit was Superman (vol. 1) #302 (August 1976). Shuster died in 1992 and Siegel in 1996.
Kate Bosworth[]
Kate Bosworth blamed the curse for some misfortune in her personal life. While filming Superman Returns, her relationship with then boyfriend, actor Orlando Bloom, became strained and they broke up.
Zack Snyder[]
The curse was mentioned when Man of Steel (2013) director Zack Snyder's daughter Autumn committed suicide in March 2017 following a lifelong struggle with clinical depression. This incident would cause Snyder to leave the post-production process of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film Justice League (2017), leading to his replacement by director Joss Whedon who additionally provided uncredited, studio-mandated rewrites that altered several aspects of the finished film. His director's cut Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) was eventually dedicated to Autumn's memory through a credit placed at the end of the film.
Those Believed to Have Escaped "the Curse"[]
Henry Cavill[]
Henry Cavill's career has continued to flourish in film and television beyond his role as Superman. He is widely considered to be the only Superman actor to have successfully escaped "the curse" and not have his acting career be entirely defined by the character. His most famous roles besides Superman include Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), August Walker in Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018), Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher (2019-2023), and Sherlock Holmes in Enola Holmes (2020).
When asked about whether he was worried about the curse negatively affecting his career and life, Cavill replied, "I honestly don't believe there's a curse. There's bad luck, but I don't think it's any curse."[3]
Dean Cain[]
Dean Cain stated that nothing really bad happened to him and ended his statement with "Knock on wood". He's continued to have a fairly successful career in television, making guest appearances and recurring roles on various shows. He has also had roles in other Superman adaptations, portraying the villainous Dr. Curtis Knox in Smallville and the title character's foster father Jeremiah Danvers in Supergirl.
Brandon Routh[]
Brandon Routh continued to have a fairly successful career in film and television, with roles in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Dylan Dog (2011) and Chuck (2010-2011). Routh has also played the DC superhero Ray Palmer/The Atom in the CW Arrowverse starting in 2014, making appearances in Arrow, Batwoman, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl. Routh later got a chance to reprise the role of Superman for the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event in 2019.
Routh was asked in an interview if he was worried about the Superman Curse. He replied that it could be worse: he could not be cast as Superman and something terrible could still happen to him regardless.
Tom Welling[]
Tom Welling has continued to quietly have success in film and TV, both in front of and behind the camera. He's said he's paid no mind to the possibility of a curse on the role and was grateful for the chance to play Clark Kent to begin with. Like Routh, he reprised the role in 2019 for the Arrowverse crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Other Mentions of the Curse[]
Ashton Kutcher[]
Ashton Kutcher screen tested for Superman: Flyby but ultimately decided not to accept the role, citing the "curse" as one of the reasons why, along with scheduling conflicts with That '70s Show and fearing being typecast.
Josh Hartnett[]
While he didn't refer to it by name, Josh Hartnett cited the curse as the main reason why he rejected the offer to play Superman in Superman Returns, saying, "I didn't want to be labeled as Superman for the rest of my career."