Marlon Brando was a lion of a thespian, redefining the notion of a film actor in the second half of the twentieth century. Though a contentious figure in real life, Brando held unparalleled talent, delivering unforgettable performances in game-changing movies like A Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now. Across his eighty-year lifespan, he appeared in over fifty films, taking on just a handful of roles in the new millennium before his 2004 death. His very last performance in Big Bug Man, though, never saw an audience, and it might have been his least conventional role in his entire, illustrious filmography.
How Did Marlon Brando Nearly End Up in a Fox Animation?
Towards the end of the twentieth century, Marlon Brando’s health went on a long downward spiral. Obesity, diabetes, pneumonia, as well as an increasingly tenuous reputation stifled Brando’s later career. Still, his talents seemed to keep the offers coming, and even after becoming all but bedridden in the last months of his life, filmmakers continued to seek him out.
Two of those filmmakers were Bob Bendetson and Peter Shin, Fox Animation employees who had worked as writers and directors on both The Simpsons and Family Guy. Sometime around the turn of the century, the duo entered plans to co-direct a feature film under Bendetson and producer Stuart Black‘s new production company, Studio Free Studios. The movie would be an animated superhero comedy, and Brando would play an extremely off-type character.
Who Did Marlon Brando Play in ‘Big Bug Man’?
The project was titled Big Bug Man, and Brendan Fraser would have voiced the main character— a candy factory employee named Howard Kind, who, after getting bitten by bugs, becomes the titular superhero. Specific details about the hero’s powers and the overall plot have only been vaguely speculated at. However, surviving storyboard art from animator Howard E. Baker shows the mock-Spider-Man-like origin story, depicted through a hard-lined cartoon style not dissimilar to what Baker previously drew for Rugrats in the 1990s.
Brando was originally cast to voice the character Nicholas Dunderbeck: a heavyset, Don Corleone-like corporate boss at the crooked candy company. The aging actor, however, felt more drawn to a different role. Instead of playing Dunderbeck, Brando insisted on providing the voice for Mrs. Sour, a character that the film’s executive producer Gabriel Grunfeld described as “a funny, acerbic old lady – a sort of mean Willie Wonka.”
Bendetson told The Guardian back in 2004 that “playing an old lady in an animated picture was something Brando wanted to do for years,” and that despite being on death’s doorstep, the actor brought immense energy to the role. Brando recorded his lines from his home in Los Angeles, donning a dress, gloves, blonde wig, and makeup to get into character. Evidently, his longtime reputation for method acting was not yet gone, and even though he needed oxygen to breath at that point in his life, Brando still described Mrs. Sour as the most fun he had with a role since making Julius Caesar back in 1953.
What Happened to ‘Big Bug Man’?
On July 1st, 2004, just three weeks after recording his lines for Big Bug Man, Brando passed away from respiratory failure linked to Pulmonary Fibrosis. The final performance thus received a lot of coverage in the immediate wake of his death, with most expecting the developing project to see a release by 2006. However, despite all notoriety at the time, nearly two decades have now gone by, and Big Bug Man remains unseen.
According to Lost Media Wiki, the film’s release was delayed to 2007 and then 2008 before seeming to fade into the abyss. In a 2022 article for Vice, voice director Marice Tobias—who worked most intimately with Brando on the project—speculated that Big Bug Man‘s risque tone may have contributed to its perpetual delays. She compared the film to South Park, but without the clever social commentary.
Today, details about the project are highly elusive, so much so that it’s unclear whether Big Bug Man was ever even finished. While it is confirmed that Brando completed his lines for Mrs. Sour, his engagement may have been wisely expedited due to his health. The rest of the film very well could have remained in development. Only storyboards and promo stills exist for the movie— no animation is available, nothing indicates that Fraser ever recorded his part, and it’s dubious whether Bendetson ever even drafted a full script.
The only glimpse into Marlon Brando’s performance as Mrs. Sour came in a 2004 CNN report, which aired shortly after the actor’s death. The segment features hardly five seconds of Brando’s old-lady voice. It is funny, yet convincing, and given the context, the performance offers a hint of whimsical romanticism. One can hear the remnants of an aging Brando, but the clip is tragically too brief to appreciate in full.
How Did Marlon Brando’s Career End?
Until Big Bug Man gets released (or at least finished), Brando’s final contributions to the world as an actor include his live-action role as a crime boss in Frank Oz‘s 2001 heist film The Score, a part in Michael Jackson‘s 2001 “You Rock My World” music video and some brief lines recorded as Don Corleone for the 2006 Godfather videogame. He also intended to play himself in the film that would become 2011’s Always Brando, but the project remained in development at the time of his death. In 2006, Bryan Singer also incorporated unused footage of Brando as Jor-El to posthumously include him in Superman Returns.
If released, Big Bug Man would be Brando’s proper last work. At the same time, though, it would have provided a couple of firsts for the actor. It would be his first animated film, and despite Brando toeing the line of drag in 1976’s The Missouri Breaks and 1996’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, Big Bug Man would be his first time playing a woman. The film is thus an interesting bit of trivia, but also a truly missed opportunity to see one of Hollywood’s greatest talents fulfill his wacky dreams at his latest hour. Still, the Brando dialogue has hopefully been saved somewhere, and with adult animation booming, Brandon Fraser back in the spotlight, and superhero parodies being a timely subgenre, perhaps it’s time to dust off the archives, reenter production, and finally give Big Bug Man its long overdue release.
It sounds like an offer nobody could refuse.
