Marlon Brando wanted Warner Bros. to pay him $2 million for two days of work on The Invisible Man

Marlon Brando is filled with stories of eccentricities, outrageous behavior and schemes. One of my favorites is the time he wanted to power his house by filling his swimming pool with electric eels. But this one involves cold hard cash, something that the iconic actor also loved. No, this isn’t about Superman, but rather the Invisible Man.

According to writer/director Paul Schrader, Marlon Brando came up with a scheme to get as much money out of one of Hollywood’s biggest studios as he could. “Warner’s owed him some money, and he wanted to do a remake of Invisible Man. And Marlon called me up, and he was in Tahiti and wound up telling me the whole story about how he wanted to do it, The Invisible Man. And I listened to him and I talked to him, and we had another conversation, and I realized that Warner’s owed him $2 million. He figured one day, he’ll come in, put the [body] tape on in the morning, in the afternoon he’ll take the tape off, the next day he’ll do the voiceovers and that’s $2 million.”

Schrader would somehow talk Marlon Brando out of that plot before the studio could even have the chance to show him the door. But imagining Brando pitching the idea and then going through with it (and spending that money on who knows what!) is a terrific picture. It certainly wouldn’t have been his most belittling cash grab ever…

Marlon Brando of course famously did get a huge paycheck for a small amount of work on Richard Donner’s Superman, receiving a $3.7 million salary for less than two weeks of work — which was pretty much spent reading cue cards anyway. He would also take home over 11% of the movie’s profits, allowing him to earn what’s commonly referred to in the industry as “I own my own island now” money. He would also net millions of dollars from Apocalypse Now, despite having no more than 15 minutes of screen time. Just another reason to respect the legend…

What is your favorite Marlon Brando story? Give us a good one in the comments section below.