When
Alexander and Ilya Salkind negotiated the film rights for Superman from DC and Warner Bros. in 1975, nobody could see past the campy 1966
Batman starring Adam West.
To prove they meant business, the Salkinds hired
Mario Puzo, author of
The Godfather, to write their Superman script, and the biggest movie star in the world,
Marlon Brando, also from
The Godfather, to play their Jor-El.
After Puzo completed a draft for both
Superman and
Superman II, the producers brought in
Robert Benton and
David Newman to rewrite the two-picture project. The duo had prior Superman experience, having written the script for the 1966 Broadway musical
It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman, and had just scored an Oscar nomination for their
Bonnie and Clyde screenplay.
Benton left the project to adapt and direct
Kramer vs. Kramer, taking home Oscars in both categories. Newman then brought in his wife,
Leslie Newman, to replace Benton. The Newmans would stick with the Salkinds to pen scripts for
Superman III and
Santa Claus.
After James Bond director Guy Hamilton had to drop out of trying to make Superman fly due to tax complications, veteran TV director
Richard Donner was brought in off the success of his breakthrough film,
The Omen.
Feeling the Puzo-Benton-Newman-Newman script was too campy, Donner brought in
Tom Mankiewicz to rewrite it with an eye toward
verisimilitude. The WGA declined to give Mankiewicz a screenplay credit, so Donner gave him a special credit as "Creative Consultant." Mank would go on to write an uncredited draft of Tim Burton's
Batman.
Principal photography on
Superman and
Superman II began simultaneously in 1977 with newcomer
Christopher Reeve in the title role and Oscar winner
Gene Hackman as his archenemy, Lex Luthor. Already one of the most expensive and arduous shoots of all time, Donner’s determination to bring a sense of realism to the fantasy film strained relations between the director and producers by busting the budget and schedule.
By the time the producers decided to halt production on
Superman II to concentrate on finishing the first movie, Donner was no longer on speaking terms with his bosses, so Beatles director
Richard Lester was hired as a go-between. Best known for
A Hard Day's Night, Lester had previously helmed a star-studded, two-part
Three Musketeers extravaganza for the Salkinds.
Superman: The Movie opened on December 15, 1978, to international success. Grossing $134 million domestically ($455 million in 2013 dollars, placing it in the top 100, adjusted, of all time) and another $166 million worldwide, the film received a special Academy Award for its groundbreaking visual effects.
Before
Superman II resumed production, Donner had told
Variety he would not return if producer Pierre Spengler were still on the picture. The Salkinds remained loyal to Spengler, who’d been friends with Ilya since childhood, and moved forward with Richard Lester taking over.
Donner had already completed all of Brando’s and Hackman’s scenes for the sequel, plus the diner scenes with the bully, all White House footage, and most of the material set in the Fortress of Solitude, the
Daily Planet offices, and on the surface of the moon. Lester shot the Niagara Falls sequence, the destruction of East Houston, the opening sequence in Paris, and most of the climactic super-battle in the streets of Metropolis. He also re-shot enough Donner footage to make himself eligible for screen credit.
After an advance international run,
Superman II opened in the United States on June 19, 1981, earning $109 million domestically, making it the third highest grossing film of the year.
Without the encumbrance of Donner’s verisimilitude, Lester, the Salkinds, and the Newmans returned with a campy
Superman III in 1983 that starred Richard Pryor and made roughly half what its predecessor made. The Salkinds then switched gears to
Supergirl in 1984, which performed even worse, then, the following year, moved on to tell the story of another famous resident of the North Pole in
Santa Claus: The Movie.
The Salkinds also produced the live-action, half-our TV series
Superboy, which had a successful four-season run, though Papa Salkind was a producer in name only. The father-son team had a falling out while making
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (starring Brando) and Alexander sold the Superman rights out from under his son. Ilya ended up suing his father and they remained estranged until Alexander’s death in 1997.
Meanwhile, Reeve tried to revive his part of the franchise, sans Salkinds, taking creative control and a co-story credit on
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Co-screenwriter
Mark Rosenthal (
The Legend of Billie Jean, starring
Supergirl's Helen Slater) opened the
Superman IV DVD commentary with the honest assessment, “You can tell from the very first credit that something is terribly wrong in Metropolis.” The box office bomb made less than a third of the disappointing take for
Superman III and Reeve, himself, asked his father not to go see either of the last two installments.
Superman thrived again on the small screen in
Superman: The Animated Series, which ran for four seasons on the WB,
Lois & Clark for four seasons on ABC, and most recently
Smallville for 10 seasons on the WB.
X-Men director
Bryan Singer brought Superman back to the big screen in 2006’s
Superman Returns, a quasi continuation of the first two Reeve movies with an almost all-new cast; only the deceased Marlon Brando returned in unused Donner footage from 1977.
That same year, Warner Bros. responded to fans’ demands for a release of Donner’s original
Superman II footage.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut approximates what the first sequel might have looked like had Donner been allowed to finish it. The re-do restored more Brando footage and incorporated screen test footage of one scene that was never shot.
It was Donner’s vision of verisimilitude that made the first Superman movie a benchmark for all superhero movies to come. Along those lines, Warner Bros. scored a bigger success with
Tim Burton’s non-campy
Batman, starring
Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and
Batman Returns. That franchise also began to fizzle with two campier sequels under a different director and the forgettable Catwoman spin-off. But Batman came back to life with
Christopher Nolan’s
Dark Knight trilogy, the latter two of which took in over $1 billion each worldwide.
Studying the big screen hits and misses from the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader, the
Marvel Universe found its stride first with the X-Men movies, then with a Spider-Man trilogy and reboot. Today they have ongoing feature series for Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, and Thor, with all four coming together to make
Marvel’s The Avengers the third highest-grossing movie of all time.
Learning from those who learned from them, DC and Warner Bros. have re-launched the franchise today with a darker, angstier
Man of Steel. Produced by Nolan and directed by
Zack Snyder (
300,
Watchmen), the film stars British actor Henry Cavill in the title role, with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as the Kents, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and no Jimmy Olsen.
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| Russell Crowe as Jor-El in "Man of Steel" (2013) |
COMING SOON:
ScripTipps will probe the scripts of those first two landmark Superman movies for insightful screenwriting tips that can be used to enhance any screenplay, big or small.
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