ONE
SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE
1978
YOU’LL BELIEVE A MAN CAN FLY!
In 1974 Alexander Salkind, Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler (European uber-producers) bought the rights to Superman from DC comics. The Salkinds and Spengler’s approach to making movies was very much like Real Madrid or Manchester City’s approach to football: sign big names and the rest will fall into place. They started off by signing Mario Puzo (Oscar-winning writer ofThe Godfather) at a salary of $600,000 (which by today’s standards is an absolute fortune) to write the film.
Next, they signed up Marlon Brando at a cool $3.75 million (and 11.75% of the box office) with a contract stipulation that he would only work for twelve days (and at that probably only half-arsed), and then they bagged Gene Hackman for a snip at $2 million. Soon afterwards, Puzo delivered his script forSuperman: over 500 pages long, in two parts and probably weighing ninety tonnes. Though the Salkinds were very happy with it, they were worried it was slightly too long (a bit of an understatement), so they hired husband-and-wife team David and Leslie Newman for rewrites. Their script came back leaner but with a camp tone that included a cameo appearance by Telly Savalas as Kojak, presumably waving his lollipop at the Son of Jor-El as he soared over his bald head.
Guy Hamilton, director of Bond films such asLive and Let Die,Diamonds Are Forever andGoldfinger, was hired to direct. At the time, Hamilton was living in Italy as a canny tax exile. Many British celebrities and high earners were living abroad during this time as tax in the UK was cripplingly high (as much as 75%). From his studio in Rome, Hamilton had shot test footage, and sets were being built at a combined cost of over $2 million. Production was racing ahead at the rate of a speeding bullet.
Meanwhile, countless actors were approached to play the Man of Steel himself. Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, Patrick Wayne, James Caan, James Brolin, Christopher Walken, Nick Nolte, Kurt Russell, Jeff Bridges and David Soul all turned it down. How could you begin filmingSuperman without Superman? The producers were keen to start filming as soon as possible, otherwise they could risk losing Brando and Hackman, both of whom were in high demand.
So, in 1976 production moved to England, but Hamilton couldn’t come back to the UK without being hit with a huge tax bill, so he disappeared into the Phantom Zone and the director’s chair fell empty.
Things looked to be stalling once again until the producers happened to see the 1976 horror classicThe Omen, directed