Russell Crowe to play Superman's dad

Los Angeles - Russell Crowe is in discussions to play Superman's dad in Man of Steel.

The Hollywood tough guy is in negotiations to portray Jor-El - the superhero's father on Krypton - in the upcoming reboot of the popular comic book franchise, according to Variety.

The role was played by screen legend Marlon Brando in the original 1978 film starring the late Christopher Reeve as the Last Son of Krypton and his alter-ego Clark Kent.

If Russell lands the role he will be joining an impressive cast which includes Henry Cavill as Superman, Kevin Costner as the flying hero's Earth-bound dad, Michael Shannon as villain General Zod and Amy Adams as Clark's love interest Lois Lane.

The movie is being directed by Zack Snyder - whose previous work includes 300, Watchmen and Sucker Punch - and the filmmaker recently insisted he is approaching the project as if the five previous movies do not exist.

He said: "Literally, the one thing that everyone can start to think about is that we're making a movie that finally goes with the approach that there have been no other Superman movies. If you look at Batman Begins there's that structure: there's the canon that we know about and respect, but on other hand there's this approach that pre-supposes that there haven't been any other movies. That's what we're going with."