The Low Down on Superman Movies Posted by lebeau

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http://lebeauleblog.com/2013/06/14/the-low-down-on-superman-movies/

Zach Snyder’s 21st century take on Superman opens in theaters today.
The character, generally considered the first super hero as we know
them today, is celebrating 75 years since his first appearance in
Action Comics #1. He helped to kick off the super hero movie genre
which has become a dominant force at the box office in recent years.
And by this point, there have been enough Superman movies to form a
mini-genre dedicated to the Man of Steel.

The first live-action Superman movies were serials in 1948 and 1950.
Somewhere in my basement, I have a cheap VHS copy of them I have never
watched. I know the Batman serial has some pretty overtly racist
material that was very of its time. Superman’s first full length
feature was Superman and the Mole Men starring George Reeves. It was
essentially a trial run for the Superman TV show which would be
popular in the 50s.

In 1978, Richard Donner brought Superman to the big screen in
Superman: the Movie. They actually subtitled it “the movie” so
audiences would realize that this was the big time. Hollywood
heavyweights Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman were cast as Jor-el and
Lex Luthor respectively to lend the movie some credibility. Because
back then, when people thought of super heroes they had images of the
Biff-Bam-Pow Batman series of the 60s.

The Superman movie almost went the same way. Producers Alexander and
Ilya Salkind had originally envisioned a campy Superman. Originally,
James Bond director, Guy Hamilton was signed on to direct when the
film was going to be shot in Italy. But the location changed to
England because Brando had an outstanding warrant out for his arrest
in Italy due to his racy film, The Last Tango in Paris. Hamilton was
a tax exile in England and had to drop out.

That opened the door for Donner to direct. Donner wanted to do a
faithful adaptation of Superman which was unheard of at the time. He
hired his friend Tom Mankiewicz to rewrite the silly script which had
been previously written by Godfather writer, Mario Puzo.

When it came time to cast Superman, Donner insisted on having an
unknown. He didn't think audiences would buy a star like Clint
Eastwood or Burt Reynolds in the tights. Pretty much any one who was
a lead actor in the 70s was considered for the role. At one point,
Ilya Salkind’s wife’s dentist was screen tested.

Eventually, Donner found an unknown who was perfect for the role. The
actor’s name was Christopher Reeve, a classically trained actor who
attended Cornell and Julliard. The only problem was that Reeve was a
tall, skinny actor. Donner cast Reeve with the idea that he would put
him in a fake muscle suit. But Reeve refused. He started training
with Darth Vader actor, David Prowse to bulk up for the role.

I’ll lay all my cards on the table. I was nearly 8 years old when
Superman the Movie was released. So it’s probably unavoidable that
Christopher Reeve is my Superman. No other actor will ever embody the
character the way Reeve did for me and still does. I can’t strip away
that bias. But I think even if I were able to somehow look at Reeve’s
performance objectively, it’s hard to argue that his Superman is
anything but the definitive take on the character. Not only did he
make you believe a man could fly, he made you believe people would be
fooled by Clark Kent’s glasses.

Donner shot Superman the Movie and its sequel, Superman II back-to-
back. All the while, tensions escalated between Donner and the
Salkinds. Specifically, they fought over the budget. Eventually,
Donner had to cease work on Superman II in order to get the first
movie finished in time for its December release.

This also meant making some changes to the script. Originally,
Superman the Movie was going to end with Superman throwing Lex
Luthor’s nuclear missiles into space inadvertently freeing General Zod
from the Phantom Zone. The ending would have been a cliff-hanger with
Zod, Non and Ursa flying to earth as a tease for Superman II.

But Donner needed Superman to be a hit and was worried that the cliff-
hanger ending would disappoint audiences. So he took the ending that
was planned for Superman II in which Superman reverses time and he
applied it to the first film. He reasoned that he would come up with
a new ending for the sequel when he got back to work on it.

Donner’s Superman was a hit with critics and audiences alike. The
movie has its flaws. The tone is uneven. Lex Luthor’s bad guy plot
makes absolutely no sense at all. But few super hero movies can match
it for charm and earnestness – two traits I find lacking in most
modern entries in the genre.

Also, I refuse to move on without mentioning John Williams’ Superman
score. Wow. Donner often tells the story of the first time he heard
it and how amazed he was because it sounds like the music proclaims
“Superman”. The tag line to Superman the Movie was “You will believe
a man can fly.” And that promise was kept largely based on Williams’
soaring score. Any time I hear it, it brings a big, goofy smile to my
face.

After the success of Superman the Movie, Donner was ready to get back
to work on Superman II. However, the Salkinds had an ax to grind with
him after than many disputes over the budget. So they replaced Donner
with director Richard Lester.

Lester was famous for having directed the Beatles’ film, A Hard Day’s
Night, and he had worked with the Salkinds before on the 1973 version
of The Three Musketeers and the 1974 sequel, The Four Musketeers. The
Salkinds thought Lester’s light touch was more in line with their
sensibilities.

Donner had already shot as much as 75% of Superman II. In order to be
considered the director, it was required that Lester shoot at least
50% of the film. So the Salkinds approved re-shoots of much of what
Donner had already completed. Gene Hackman refused, so any scene in
which Lex Luthor appears was shot by Donner or used a stand-in.

Lester added in his own touches which are easily identifiable. All
the comedic bits with a big mute who can’t figure out how to use his
powers came from Lester. The slapstick during the big fight scene in
the streets of Metropolis are pure Lester. And the infamous memory-
erasing super-kiss Clark uses to make Lois forget his secret identity
was from Lester as well.

Like a lot of people, I am somewhat critical of what Lester brought to
the Superman franchise. But I have to give him a bit of a pass on the
super kiss. Donner had already used the film’s intended ending which
would have conveniently returned the villains to the Phantom Zone
while erasing Superman’s time with Lois. It’s not like he could use
time travel all over again. So he didn’t have a whole lot of
options. Still, the super kiss is like Kryptonian ruffies.

When it was released in 1980, Superman II received positive reviews
and was a hit at the box office despite the behind-the-scenes
difficulties. Over the years, various versions of the film have been
shown on TV including some of Donner’s footage which was cut for the
theatrical release. Eventually, fans made an attempt to create a cut
that was as faithful as possible to Donner’s original vision.

The fan cut of Superman II was passed around as a bootleg video for
many years before Warner Bros finally commissioned an official Richard
Donner cut. Unfortunately, Donner never got to shoot all of his
version of the movie. So the Donner cut is a patchwork quilt of a
movie. It uses footage from Christopher Reeve’s screen test, as
little of Lester’s footage as possible, and resuses the ending of
Superman the Movie (which was originally intended to be the ending of
Superman II anyway.)

Emboldened by the success of Superman II, the Salkinds enlisted Lester
to direct Superman III. For the third film in the franchise, the
Salkinds and Lester had a clean slate to make their kind of Superman
movie without Donner’s insistence on “ verisimilitude”.

Left to his own devices, Ilya Salkind came up with a truly bizarre
treatment for Superman III. His version included comic book villains
Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk along with Supergirl. This might sound
awesome, but Salkind’s take on the characters departed greatly from
the source material.

In Salkind’s treatment, Brainiac finds Supergirl as a baby and raises
her as his own just as the Kents raised Clark. But then the surrogate
father falls in love with his adopted daughter who is in turn in love
with Superman. Mr. Mxyzptlk figures into the mess as a much more
malevolent character than the imp portrayed in the comics.

Warner Brothers shot down Salkind’s treatment, but elements of the
Brainiac story crept into the final version of the film which instead
focused on computers. Or at least computers as they were understood
in the early 1980′s which were essentially seen as magic boxes capable
of turning women into cyborgs and controlling the weather.

At the time, Richard Pryor was reinventing his image. Up until then,
he had been known as a raunchy comedian. But in the 80′s, he started
making family friendly comedies (if The Toy can be considered family
friendly as opposed to overtly racist and insultingly stupid.)

Pryor appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and he did a
little bit on Superman. He goofed around with a makeshift cape much
as he does in Superman III. He told Carson he was a Superman fan
which lead to him being cast in a significant role in the next movie.

Lester’s finger-prints are all over the third Superman movie which
opens with a Rube Golberg-like series of slapstick over the opening
credits. As a director, he had a very improvisational style and tried
to ramp up the comedic elements. He asked Pryor to improvise a scene
in which he goofed around with a cape much like he did on The Tonight
Show before skiing off the roof of a building. Pryor himself did not
think the bit was funny, but Lester insisted.

Superman III also saw a change in Superman’s love interest. Margot
Kidder’s Lois Lane is written off early in the film. She is sent to
Bermuda on assignment not to be seen again until just before the
closing credits. Kidder attributed this move to punishment for
comments she made criticizing the Salkinds for replacing Donner on
Superman II. The Salkinds have denied that this was their motivation.

Instead, Clark rekindles an old flame in Smallville with his high
school sweetheart, Lana Lang. Lana is played by Annette O’Toole who
would go on to play Martha Kent on the TV show, Smallville. The sweet
scenes between Reeve and O’Toole are some of the best in the movie.

When Superman III was released, it couldn't help but disappoint fans
of the more serious Donner movie and the sequel which was largely
influenced by Donner’s work. Reviews were mixed to negative and the
movie disappointed at the box office.

I recently revisited the movie and found that despite its many flaws
(most of them involving shoehorning Pryor into the proceedings), there
is a lot to like. There is an extended sequence in which Superman is
turned into a jerk by synthetic Kryptonite (don’t ask). Reeve plays
the scenes with just the right amount of menace to make them work.
This is arguably his best and most nuanced performance in the Superman
series even if the movie he’s starring in isn't very good.

The Salkinds also owned the rights to Supergirl who they had tried to
include in Superman III. When that didn’t pan out, they decided to
develop a spin-off movie for the character.

Christopher Reeve was supposed to make a cameo appearance in the movie
to lend the spin-off some credibility. But Reeve, who was constantly
worried about the kind of type-casting that effectively ended George
Reeves’ career, bowed out early. Instead, it is explained off camera
that Superman is on a peace-keeping mission in space.

A photo of Reeve as Superman can be seen in the background. Also,
Marc McClure who played Jimmy Olsen in the first three Superman movies
agreed to reprise his role for the spin-off. Demi Moore was
originally cast as Lois Lane’s sister, Lucy Lane, but she had to drop
out due to other commitments. Lucy was played by Maureen Teefy.

The plot to Supergirl is incomprehensible. It involves some kind of
magic device called the Omegahedron and a witch played by Faye
Dunaway. The Salkinds originally wanted Dolly Parton for the role,
but she refused to play a witch under any circumstances.

For the role of Supergirl’s mentor, the Salkinds approached Dudely
Moore (whom they had wanted to cast as Mr. Mxyzptlk in Superman III).
Moore turned down the role, but suggested his old TV partner, Peter
Cook. The mentor role was eventually played by Peter O’Toole, but
Cook was cast as Dunaway’s henchman. Even the casting for this movie
is confusing.

Ilya Salkind wanted to cast Melanie Griffith or Brooke Shields as the
Girl of Steel. But ultimately, the decision was made to cast an
unknown as they had with Reeve. Helen Slater was selected for what
everyone assumed would be a star-making role. Especially Slater who
reportedly let the part go to her head.

Unfortunately for Slater, Supergirl opened to terrible reviews and
flopped at the box office. After the disappointment of Superman III
and the failure of Supergirl, the Salkinds decided to get out of the
Superman movie business.

The Salkinds sold their Superman film rights to Cannon Films. Cannon
was known for cranking out low-budget action films in the 80s. Cannon
decided to try to change their image by making a big budget Superman
movie. They promised Reeve story input plus the production of any non-
Superman movie of his choice to reprise his role. Reeve accepted and
Cannon produced the crime drama, Street Smart, for him to star in.

Reeve did not want to make a silly Superman movie like Superman III
was. So he came up with the idealistic notion of Superman trying to
prevent the threat of nuclear war which was a very pressing concern in
1987. It was an interesting idea that was executed terribly. Cannon
Films ran out of money early in production and began cutting costs
left and right. A scene in which Superman was supposed to address the
UN in New York was filmed in a municipal auditorium in Canada to save
money.

The plot centered around Lex Luthor (a returning Gene Hackman’s)
attempt to corner the market on nuclear weapons. He uses a strand of
Superman’s DNA to create an evil clone named Nuclear Man. Originally,
Reeve was supposed to play the role along with his dual roles of Clark
Kent and Superman. But when that proved too expensive, the role was
recast with actor Mark Pillow and Gene Hackman’s voice dubbed over.

Everything about Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is laughably
incompetent. Reeve pulled co-star Jon Cryer aside before the premiere
to warn him that the movie was terrible. The one thing that makes the
movie worth watching is the chance to see Reeve, Hackman and Kidder
reprising their roles one last time. The performances from the
regulars are universally great. But the movie is so dreadful, you’re
better off just watching Superman: the Movie again.

Reviews were terrible and the movie flopped. The Superman film series
went dormant for many, many years. The character still remained vital
in pop culture though. From 1988-1992, there was a syndicated show
focusing on the adventures of Superboy, a young Superman. Basically
the show was the 80′s version of Smallville with young Clark in
tights.

From 1993-1997, Dean Cain played Superman on the TV show, Lois and
Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The show downplayed the
adventures and played up the central romance between Superman/Clark
and Lois. It’s no coincidence Terri Hatcher’s Lois Lane got top
billing in the show’s title. Her sexy take on Lois stole the show.

For a while, the quirky take on the Superman myth was a hit. But
gradually the show slid from goofy fun into just plain goofy.
Audiences got frustrated with the lack of a real threat for Superman
to face and the increasingly ridiculous roadblocks used to keep Lois
and Clark apart.

In 2001, Superman returned to the small screen on the WB’s
Smallville. Like Superboy, the show told the adventures of a young
Clark Kent. However, unlike Superboy, this Clark Kent was not allowed
to don his super hero costume or to fly. Early on, the show was
basically a rip-off of the WB’s hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer with its
monster-of-the-week format. Some citizen of Smallville would gain
super powers from a “meteor rock” (Kryptonite to you and me).

Amazingly, the show lasted ten seasons finally ending its run on the
re-branded CW network in 2011. Over that time, the show changed in
many ways from its coming of age story. Tom Welling, who played young
Clark, was in this thirties by the time the show ended. Which made
the idea that he was not yet Superman increasingly ridiculous.

Also, just about every character in the DC Universe who was not
related to Batman or Wonder Woman eventually showed up as guest star
at some point. So the character who is credited as the world’s first
superhero was depicted as a latecomer on the TV show. Still, you
can’t argue with the show’s success which paved the way for Arrow, and
Aquaman pilot and possible a Wonder Woman show down the line.

Over the years between Superman IV and Superman Returns, several
attempts were made to bring the character back to the big screen.
When Cannon went bankrupt, the rights reverted back to the Salkinds
who came up with an idea for a fifth Superman movie. Ilya Salkind
came up with a death and resurrection story which predated the famous
Death of Superman story from the comics.

The success of the Death of Superman prompted Warner Brothers to
revisit the Superman franchise. In an early draft of Superman Reborn,
Superman dies fighting Doomsday. As he passes, his life force jumps
into Lois Lane and impregnates her. Her baby ages at an increased
rate to be the new Superman.

Eventually, Kevin Smith was brought into to do a rewrite on the
project now called Superman Lives. I’ll just let Smith tell the
story.

Thankfully, Superman Lives died a quick death when Warner Brother’s
rejected Tim Burton’s $200 million dollar budget.

By that time, Warner Brothers’ Batman franchise had also died out.
There was talk of rebooting both franchises with Batman Vs. Superman.
There was also a competing screenplay by JJ Abrams called Superman:
Flyby. Thankfully, none of these movies were made as everything I
have read about them makes them seem awful.

Superman finally did return to the big screen in 2006 in Bryan
Singer’s ode to Richard Donner, Superman Returns.

At the time, Singer had been very successful at Fox with the first two
X-Men movies. So it was a major coup when Warner Bros was able to
steal him away to reboot their Superman franchise. Unfortunately,
this turned into a lose/lose proposition. The third X-Men film
directed by Brett Ratner (who was at one point attached to Superman)
was a mess and Singer’s Superman was a disappointment.

Prior to Superman Returns, I did not think it was possible to be too
devoted to Donner’s Superman. But Singer proved me wrong. Reusing
John Williams’ score is one thing. But making a movie that serves as
a follow-up to 1980′s Superman II and having Brandon Routh impersonate
Christopher Reeve while repeating some of the original dialogue went a
few steps too far.

Superman Returns was a noble effort. But the film makes so many mis-
steps it’s a wonder anyone approved it. First, the film follows-up on
the icky “super kiss” from Superman II. The plot has Superman
knocking up Lois Lane, erasing her memory of their relationship and
then flying off into space for several years. When he returns,
Superman is a dead beat dad who uses his super powers to stalk his ex.

Additionally, Singer overplays the Christ imagery. Yes, there has
always been an element of Superman as savior. Donner used it too.
But Superman has always had more in common with Moses than Jesus.
Having Superman assume a crucifixion pose before dying and rising from
the dead to save the day was a bit much.

But the movie’s biggest sin was that it was boring. Singer made a 2
1/2 hour Superman movie in which Superman does not throw a single
punch. The movie does contain one incredible rescue scene. But
beyond that, it’s a bit of a snooze. And the scene in which Lex
Luthor’s thugs beat down Superman brutally goes on so long it becomes
comical. I have heard fans refer to the scene as “The Passion of the
Superman”.

Superman Returns got mixed to negative reviews. It did reasonably
well at the box office, but fell short of the studio’s expectations.
Planned sequels were canceled as Warner Bros went back to the drawing
board.

After Superman Returns disappointed, Singer returned to the X-Men
franchise for the currently filming sequel, Days of Future Past.
Warner Brothers turned to director Christopher Nolan who had
successfully rebooted their Batman franchise with Batman Begins.
Nolan wasn't interested in directed a Superman movie, but he did agree
to produce Man of Steel with Watchmen director, Zach Snyder, helming.

Reviews so far are mixed. The movie avoids the sins of Superman
Returns. In Man of Steel, Henry Cavill’s Superman throws lots and
lots of punches. But many critics claim the movie goes overboard and
turns into an empty summer movie spectacle without the heart of what
made the original film so good.

I have been trying to keep my expectations of the film to a minimum as
I don’t want to be disappointed. The lukewarm reviews definitely help
with that. I probably won’t run out to see the movie tonight as I had
originally intended. But you can expect a review from me later this
weekend. I’m too big of a Superman fan miss it.