‘Big Bug Man’, Brendan Fraser’s lost film with Marlon Brando

A slump of commercial failures in the early 2000s led to Hollywood denying Brendan Fraser several roles and the actor’s career fading into oblivion. ‘Big Bug Man’, the animated film in which he starred with Marlon Brando in 2006, he was one of the victims of the actor’s loss of popularity and it did not premiere although various reports claimed that all the voices were recorded and that the approved budget was 20 million dollars.

Directed by bob bendetson, screenwriter and producer of ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘A botch at home’, ‘Big Bug Man’ told the story of an employee at a candy factory, Howard King, who was accidentally bitten by an insect and developed powers of Super Hero. A little ‘Spider-Man’, but without the bit. Howard would quickly become a celebrity as ‘Big Bug Man’, but fame and money would eventually corrupt him.

Brendan Fraser would be in charge of voicing Howard, while Marlon Brando was going to be the grumpy owner of the Mrs. Sour candy factory. As Bendeton stated, Brando always wanted to play a woman, and they helped him fulfill his dream. Mrs. Sour only appears in three scenes, so the recording lasted only one day. Brando wore a blonde wig, dress, white gloves, and full makeup while recording the voice of Mrs. Sour, partly for the laughs and partly for wanting to get into character. “She took her wig off about halfway through because she was too hot,” Bendetson said.

According to the film’s executive producer, Gabriel Grunfeld, Brando described the part as “the most fun I’ve had since ‘Julius Caesar’. [1953]“. Although Brando was very fragile, the team saw him full of energy and inventiveness. The recording took place at Marlon Brando’s house, on June 10, 2004, with the veteran actor taking oxygen every time he said a sentence. He died the following month, on July 1, 2004..

‘Big Bug Man’ had a planned release date of 2006. It was later pushed back to 2007, then to 2008… And so far. The reasons why the film failed to find distribution are unknown, but Brendan Fraser’s recent Best Actor Oscar could be the perfect push for a streaming platform to dare to release it. After all, it is the last film of a legend like Marlon Brando.