The Superman Series (1978-1987): Christopher Reeve's Man Of Steel

the year is 1978 Greece and Animal House are two of the highest Grocers of the Year this couldn't be further from the current ERA of superhero films reigning Supreme Over the box office but what's that up in the sky it's a bird it's a plane no it's Superman huh been a while with everything that the DC Cinematic Universe has become over the last decade it felt like time to go way back to the films that started it all so we're going back to the beginning and revisiting all the colorful spandex flamboyant villains and a-listers along the way first up we've got the one that started it all with DC Revisited Superman [Music] thank you DC Comics has had a slew of successful superheroes over the years they pop from the page with their bright colors and the time had come to see them on the big screen while lesser cereals had been released prior the most successful of which being the Adam West starring Batman the movie it was finally time for a bigger superhero on the screen enter Superman and enter young entrepreneur Ilya salkind salkind a Mexican producer following in the family business joined forces with his father Alexander and Pierre Spangler to purchase the film rights to Superman in 1974. salkon's grand plan was to film the first two Superman films back to back this meant a longer shooting schedule but massive sets like the Fortress of Solitude wouldn't need to be stored in between films or entirely rebuilt from scratch So the plan seemed foolproof zalkin just needed a director that could manage his vision or more appropriately the budget the total budget for the film was set at 55 million dollars which translates to over 200 million when adjusting for inflation so this was a very big gamble especially since superheroes were not the known commodity that they are now and seeing as how they weren't exactly established there weren't any directors to go to that had immediate first-hand knowledge on how to properly make this kind of film given the Innovation needed Falcon looked to James Bond Mainstay guy Hamilton to direct the feature the deal fell apart however when production for the film moved to Pinewood Studios in England and why exactly the move from cinecida studios in Rome because star Marlon Brando had a warrant out for his arrest so therefore could not be in Italy to film yeah quite the conundrum adding to the confusion was Hamilton's recent tax Exile status meaning he was not allowed in England for more than 30 days which would have put the production in a very bad place he was promptly replaced by Richard Donner whose recent film The Omen was a massive success [Music] Mario putzo David Newman Leslie Newman Robert Benton and Tom mankiewicz all had their hands in writing the screenplay with these being the writers of such Classics as The Godfather Bonnie and Clyde and Live and Let Die the movie was off to a great start at least that's how it would appear puzo's script was deemed to be too long and detailed so he left after a second draft losing interest in the character Benton and David Newman were then brought on to rewrite puzo's script and break it into two films commitments to The Late Show Newman's wife Leslie was brought in as his writing partner considered much more modern and filled with campy humor the main problem still persisted the script was too long when Diner came aboard as director he brought makowitz with him to rewrite the script the wga was strict about not having more than four writers on the movie he was relegated to the position of creative consultant despite the fact that in his own words he didn't use a word from the prior screenplays but with the reworked screenplay by mankowitz Downer could now get to work finding his Superman the list of Studio approved actors that were considered for the lead role is a who's who of Hollywood with such Giants as Al Pacino James Khan Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman but the glamor of getting into skin-tight spandex was still a few decades off so most were uninterested once the hiring process started an official offer was given to Robert Redford which he turned down this continued with Burt Reynolds eventually Paul Newman was offered four million dollars to take on either Superman Lex Luthor or Superman's father jorel but still the offer was declined getting an a-lister just wasn't in the cards so instead the focus shifted towards finding an unknown and populating some of the other roles with big names after seeing hundreds of auditions Christopher Reeve who had only appeared on TV shows like love of life and the wide world of mystery had managed to impress producers enough to win the role he had both the physical attributes and a certain boyish charm when playing Clark oddly enough in order to get into proper Superman level shape Reeve entered into a bodybuilding program supervised by none other than the physical form of Darth Vader himself David prowse results that clearly paid off Marlon Brando was cast as kalel's father jorel and like many roles before it Brando brought his interesting way of doing things he notoriously wanted to do his little work as possible on set even convincing Richard Donner to film during the rehearsal takes that's not even getting into his salary which started at three and a half million but was increased after disputes with the producers that had him removed from the second film [Music] in a somewhat odd move Jeff East was cast as a young Clark Kent despite being only five years younger than Reeve why not just have Christopher Reef play the high school role as well with a little bit of makeup adding to the confusion Reeve dubbed over all of E's dialogue so you never once hear Jeff's voice in the film to make matters worse producers never informed east of this during filming it's an odd decision but it's honestly really hard to notice and works fairly well all things considered is it showing off doing the things he's capable of doing oh and I'm not going to criticize the fact that these teenagers look like they're about 30. have you seen teenagers from this era they look about 40. so if anything this is a win going back to the Kent Farm Glenn Ford and Phyllis thaxter started as Clark's parents Jonathan and Martha they're the two that shape who Clark is so their conveyance of all things good is pretty pivotal to the story and given that this period is given the least amount of screen time they really needed to make an impact early and they nailed it when we get to the Daily Planet there's a whole slew of fascinating characters each one more interesting than the last you've got the boss Perry white played expertly by Jackie Cooper He's a fast talker whose command of the Daily Planet Newsroom makes the hierarchy clear without a word needing to be spoken then there's teenage photographer Jimmy Olsen while Olson was Mark McClure's most famous role some of you may remember him as Marty's brother in Back to the Future and last but not least star reporter Lois Lane played expertly here by Margot Kidder Kidder had been in films such as 92 in the shade and the Phenomenal Black Christmas here she gave Lois all the qualities we would grow to love her fierceness her loyalty to the truth and her puppy dog love for Superman it's a great performance and there's electricity whenever Reeve and Kidder are on screen together their famous flying scene is one of the most magical of the movie and leaves a massive impression taking on the part of Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor was Gene Hackman known for movies such as the Poseidon Adventure the conversation and the French Connection Luthor is Superman's greatest villain so to have an actor the caliber of Hackman to Encompass him as a dream come true unfortunately Hackman didn't quite see the role like it was in the comics or rather he didn't like the look refusing to wear a bald cap until the final scene of the movie Donner instead opted to style Jean's hair in various ways to make it appear like different wigs were in different states of dishevelment the illusion Works fairly well working alongside Lex Luthor is his assistant love interest Eve Tessmacher Valerie Perez stands out because she feels like more than just Lex's girlfriend in fact she's pretty vital to the story finally we've got Ned Beatty playing Otis who may be just the dumbest oath of the henchmen out there how Luthor puts up with him I'll never know if you've never seen Superman the story is simple enough young kalal escapes his dying planet of Krypton and crashlands in rural Kansas now Clark Kent he's raised to be a good person and sets off to use his Kryptonian powers for the good of humanity only he's got one really big problem Lex Luthor see ludor is all about money and power and going about getting them in not so honest ways you can see why he wouldn't be a fan of soups like any good villain he has a plan to kill Superman with his one weakness kryptonite that way he can set off a massive bomb on the San Andreas fault line sending the coast of California into the ocean and making way for new beachfront all owned by lexcorp it's honestly pretty genius I'll bite completely insane in the midst of Luthor's crazy scheme he manages to get Lois Lane killed this is when we find out that Superman doesn't just have super strength super speed Bulletproof Skin the ability to fly laser eyes x-ray vision and freeze breath he can also turn back time and how does he do that well he flies ridiculously fast around Earth which causes time to go backwards because that's how things work in this world and God bless him for it we get the very storybook ending of Superman saving the day and dropping Lex Luthor off at prison oh and we finally get a look at Lex and his full bald Glory thank God for bald caps Superman saved the day and the bad guy has been defeated it's the most good versus evil way of Storytelling out there and that's why it works so much heck that's why the Superman character as a whole works so much because sometimes we just really want to see something good and pure doing what's right [Music] when it comes to the visuals there were loads of amazing effects work done in the film take the shot of a young Clark kicking a football into the stratosphere these days it would have been entirely CGI but here they actually stuck a cannon in the ground and then shot the ball out of the sky it's extremely impressive then there's the flying which pretty much became the standard for any sort of flying scene from here on out with its Dynamic movement no more just hanging still in front of a projector anymore that's not to say there weren't issues all these effects meant problems which often meant delays [Music] John Williams has created some of the most instantly recognizable scores ever and Superman is no exception the opening credits as well as this theme over top of it is absolutely iconic in every way while the studio wanted the film to release in the summer months preferably in June for the character's 40th anniversary the massive delays in filming pushed the film to December this delay also meant that they abandoned their plan to film the sequel along with the first film despite the fact that they filmed over 75 percent of it but just focusing on the original film they were able to push through and make its December date when it finally made its debut it broke various profit records for Warner Brothers and it wasn't just audiences that were enamored critics loved it in 2021 speak it had a 94 on Rotten Tomatoes which is rarefied air Superman's success actually carried over into Awards season the amazing special effects of Superman were awarded with a special achievement Academy Award for visual effects unfortunately despite its nominations for Best Film editing best sound and best original score this was the only award the film received from the academy for many years Superman was The Benchmark for how to do a comic book movie right Christopher Reeve is Superman every person to play the role since has been compared to him so I'm entirely basing their performance off of his but it's not just his Superman that's so special the boyish charm he displays is Clark Kent and shy body language or such a contrast to the cape doning superhero that you totally buy into the fact that no one recognizes that these two people are the same 50 years from now people will still be comparing whoever is playing Superman at the time back to Christopher Reeve in the year since a three-hour television version was released that included extra scenes but this version has been admonished by its director Richard Donner who refers to this version as nothing more than a work print some fans however absolutely love this cut it gives you a little bit more insight into the character of Superman and honestly just gives you some really fun moments none of these scenes are what you would call pivotal to the story so it's easy to see why Donna isn't a fan of them however with how much they add Dimensions to the characters it's also easy to see why fans have latched on to this cut of the film while it was only available in full screen for many years fan demand and the luck of finding the original negative allowed Warner Brothers to release a fully restored Extended Cut on Blu-ray the cast of the film has shown up in various DC projects in the years since Reeve Kidder and McClure all showed up on the Superman origin show Smallville as various roles unrelated to their prior characters footage of Brando that was shot for Superman 2 was eventually used for Brian Singer Superman Returns in 2006 which saw a return to the world of the first two Superman films this year even saw the release of the comic book Superman 78 which exists in the world of Reeve Superman and gives us more insight into the world molded by Richard Donner given Donner's unfortunate passing this year it's a wonderful tribute to both the director and all of the deceased stars from the film like Reeve and Kidder despite it being 43 years since its release Superman is as Timeless as ever that's due in equal parts to its wonderful Direction by Donner the Stellar performances from Reeve Kidder and Hackman and those never before seen special effects they all combine to make one of the greatest comic book movies ever made with all of the success of the original there was still the matter of that pesky sequel that was already 75 filmed but we're getting ahead of ourselves [Music] before Zone the controversy surrounding Superman 2 is the stuff of Legend one of the biggest and most respected directors being replaced part way through production scandalous yet even with these circumstances the film still managed to be one of the better superhero films for decades would you care to step outside today we're getting into it all in DC Revisited Superman 2. foreign have always had an obsession with this film and with good reason what other films do you know where the director was replaced in lieu of having a lighter tone Oh something is definitely bleeding okay maybe it's not so uncommon but this was the first instance of fans willing a new cut of a priorly completed film into existence but in order to discuss these different versions We must first go back to the production of the first film the original plan was to film Superman and its sequel back to back given the extensive delays due to the technical skill required the decision was made to stop filming the sequel and just focus on completing the first film this proved to be a good decision with Superman making a mint at the box office and leaving audiences wanting more think that the path of least resistance would be to have everyone returned to finish the remaining 25 of the sequel sounds logical only one problem the salkines and Pierre Spangler did not get along with original director Richard Donner in fact it had gotten so bad that they hired Richard Lester as an intermediary between the producers and Donner during the first film as they were not on speaking terms thanks for watching DC films Revisited if you enjoy our shows please subscribe to our Channel right now like this video and click on the Bell so you can be notified each time a new video comes up now back to the show according to variety Pierre Spangler was actually looking forward to working with Donner on the sequel when Donner got word of this he said if he's on it I'm not the main issue came from Donner's perceived lack of creative control he wanted full control to make the movie that he wanted but the producer still wanted to say given that it was their money invested in the project never coming to an agreement Richard Lester was chosen as Donner's replacement given his prior involvement with the project given Christopher Reeve and Margot kidder's close relationship with Richard Donner neither seemed happy about the switch in directors adding to the frustration was the filming schedule which changed when the plan to make both films back to back was abandoned causing issues with Reeve's new film Somewhere in Time to compensate him producers gave Reeve a better back end deal as well as more creative control while Reeve had been mostly diplomatic regarding the replacement over the years Kidder on the other hand has not often lambasting Lester for his creative decisions The Fallout from Donner's firing was immediate with several key creative members refusing to return Gene Hackman having developed a close friendship with Donner declined to return for any of the reshoots because of this they had to work with the prior footage as well as use a voice and body double it's quite obvious in spots each one totally dedicated to corruption violence and evil creative consultant Tom makowitz who if you watched our last video you'll know was the main writer on the original film also declined to come back out of loyalty to Donner but it wasn't just because of Donner that certain creative elements failed to return cinematographer Jeffrey unsworth had passed away just before release set designer John Berry who collapsed on The Empire Strikes Back set died for meningitis so the look of Superman was set to drastically change the main issue that the celkines had with replacing Donner is that Donner had already filmed 75 of the movie if they were to reuse all of that footage they would need to give him credit on the film based on Director's Guild rules in order for Richard Lester to receive proper credit he needed to a film 40 of what ended up on screen so they instead had Lester go back in film scenes again changing them ever so slightly it makes for some really arbitrary changes most of them lesser than what was originally shot but the biggest problem with Lester's vision for the film is that it directly conflicted with donners and given that a majority of the footage used would still be from Donner it caused some strange inconsistencies Lester had said that there was a kind of David lenish attempt in several sequences and enormous scale there was a type of Epic quality which isn't in my nature so my work really didn't Embrace that that's not me so all those Dynamic shots from the first film that were meant to add scale replaced with static shots that Lester felt more resembled a comic book panel even scenes that Diner originally shot were color timed in such a way that it took away from the original work that Barry and unsworth did not to mention all of the continuity issues between Reeve and Kidder in this scene alone thankfully most of the cast from the first film returned to their roles here the main group we need to discuss is the Kryptonian terrorists as introduced by joral we have none this mindless aberration whose only means of expression are wanton violence and destruction Ursa perversions and unreasoning hatred of all mankind threatened even the children for the Planet Krypton and General Zod Chief Architect of this intended Revolution and author of this Insidious plot to establish a new order amongst us with himself as absolute ruler these are our big villains of the piece and provide us with some of the best moments of the entire film not only are they equal matches to Superman but there are three of them really UPS the stakes from the first one the basic story between the two versions is essentially the same Clark still wants to leave his life of Superman behind him to be with Lois and Saad Nan and Ursa are still terrorizing Earth it's just the little details and Order of events that are different but those little moments really add up for an entirely different tone we'll refer to Richard Lester's version as the theatrical cut and the Richard Donner version as the diner cut first the beginning of the film is entirely different Superman stops a group of terrorists in France saves the day and sends the bomb out through the top of the Eiffel Tower and out into space this bomb explodes and releases zodnan and Ursa out of their imprisoned state in The Phantom Zone in Donner's version We simply get a replay of the end of Superman 1 with soups capturing the rocket and sending it out into space this time however we follow it and see that when it explodes it releases the imprisoned kryptonians while the connection to the first film is nice it does feel a little why am I watching this so not all of the Donner content is preferred but sometimes the differences were absolutely Paramount you may have noticed that Marlon Brando doesn't appear in the theatrical version of Superman 2. this is due to his contract dispute with Warner Brothers that resulted in a lawsuit due to this no footage of him was allowed to be used that means the beginning portion with the trial on Krypton had to be entirely reshot without Brando not only that but young kalal being sent away also needed to be reshot with just Lara l Lara replaces joral in any of the instances where he was intended to show up it's very confusing since to this point jorel is the main connection that Clark has with Krypton thankfully by the time the Donner cut was released Brando had long since settled his dispute so Donner was able to use his footage as originally intended this meant that the opening was near identical to the opening of the original film and the instances of Clark interacting with the Fortress of Solitude are now back to Brando instead of Susanna Yore it really helps Bridge the two films in a natural way another major change is the scene at Niagara Falls the oddest aspect of this is that it appears to be entirely ADR I can I can give you a hand if you have trouble lifting now oh no of course not honey thanks I'll work it makes the moment feel very artificial while the interactions between Clark and Lois are much more natural in the Donner cut the biggest issue is how Lois finds out Clark as Superman she shoots at him with a gun sure it's revealed shortly after that it was just a blank but regardless it makes Lois look like a crazy person but this is the same woman who threw herself out the window to prove that Clark is Superman and failing to do so so I suppose that anything is possible one aspect that really doesn't work in either version is how quickly Clark goes from powerless to realizing he needs his power again to defeat Zod the diner scene where he gets beaten up by a trucker named Rocky is our only time being able to see him in this weekend State because then he's off to get his powers back to try and defeat the kryptonians it feels very short-sighted otherwise it's mostly the order of events that are changed between the two versions [Music] the ending is where we see a pretty big departure yet again in the original theatrical version Superman defeats the kryptonians and heads back to Metropolis with Lois who's upset that she can't cope with Clark's true identity and her love for him this is where Superman introduces the strangest power yet outside of his cellophane cape the ability to wipe someone's memory was simply a kiss now before people get too upset this is actually a power that Superman has in the comics it's established in Action Comics 306 so this isn't something completely out of left field however the power was retconned in the 80s so it clearly didn't have many fans meanwhile in the Donner version we have Clark making the rough decision to undo his relationship with Lois while simultaneously undoing all the damage that Zod and his cronies caused on Earth it effectively means that none of the film actually happened but it also kept Zod and the others alive with the potential to be used in the future neither ending is fully satisfying and there will always be fans on either side of the aisle but given the time travel things get a little bit confusing with Clark returning to the diner in the end this trucker has no idea who Clark is neither do these people so it really just looks like Clark is a big bully for no reason at least the theatrical version had some context as production wrapped no mention was made of the controversy with Donner specials were produced at the time that made it seem as though it was just a regular Hollywood production which it was clearly anything but due to Directors Guild rules Donner had still contributed to 60 of the film and therefore needed to be listed as a co-director Leicester approached honor about being listed as a co-director on the film to which Donna reportedly said I don't share credit given that the theatrical version was not his intended Vision Diner had no issue giving up credit so Richard Lester is solely credited in the poster and in the movie after viewing an early cut of the film composer John Williams felt he could no longer contribute to the project after the massive change in Direction because of this Williams was replaced by Ken Thorne who had won an Oscar for the film a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum despite this Accolade the score really suffered due to the lack of Williams at the helm even the parts of Williams score that Thorne recreated packed much less oomph likely because they were recorded with a studio Orchestra rather than the London Symphony Orchestra like in the first film thankfully Williams score was reused for the Donner cut always wanting to optimize box office receipts producers looked to release the film at different times of the year depending on the territory's most popular times for moviegoing that meant that the film released in Australia on December 4th 1980 and then in the UK on Easter of 1981 by the time the film actually released in the United States on June 19th it was well behind the rest of the world despite this Superman 2 was a massive success breaking records were the first day gross of 4.3 million audiences and critics took to it for how much it upped the stakes from the first film we're no longer just getting Superman stopping crimes and disasters we finally get to see him battle with people with similar powers it truly felt like a comic book coming to life and audiences responded with a final tally of 190 million at the box office having seen the success at the TV version of the original brought them the salkids decided to repeat the process and release a version that featured more than 24 minutes of new footage like the first film none of this footage adds to the overall story and essentially just extends scenes adding to the confusion there are many different TV versions depending on the country of origin some countries even omitted most of the violence at the White House while including these extra flourishes which amounts to dozens of varied versions of the television release still the many different TV versions are highly sought after due to these inclusions and exclusions speaking of different versions the story behind Donner being removed from the film was the stuff of Legends in movie and comic book circles the legendary Donner cut took on a mythical status with fans even releasing Superman 2 restored International cut which took scenes from the TV version and international versions of the film to get it as close to Donner's original Vision as possible this was met with legal action from Warner Brothers so the idea of a legitimate cut seeing the light of day grew smaller by the second until a certain interview with Margot Kidder and a new Superman film being in production Kidder had stated in an interview that there was a version of Superman 2 that Donner shot that was much better than what was released in theaters while fans had been hoping to see this for years it was Margo's inference that the film was simply waiting in a Warner Brothers Vault waiting to be found sent fans into a frenzy one of such fans just happened to be creating a new vision of Superman Brian Singer singer had such a love for the Reeve Superman films that he wanted his version to be a continuation of that story ignoring the events of three and four due to the singer wanted to use elements from the original films that hadn't been used and so the Vault was accessed revealing a treasure Trove of footage in fact all of the film that Donner shot was in such good shape that some of the footage of Brando was used in singers Superman Returns seeing how much excitement had drummed up at the idea of returning to Donner Superman World via singer's Vision Warner Brothers decided it was time to compile the old footage and give the fans what they wanted with singer producing Diner was brought back along with mankowitz to complete his edit of the film The Diner cut was no longer a myth while we've gone over the many differences between the two versions Donner has stated that he would have included a different ending if he had been able to film it back in the day but he maintains that the film is as close to his original Vision as you can get Warner Brothers released the Donner cut on DVD and Blu-ray in 2006 alongside the release of Superman Returns in the years since like his contemporaries Terence Stamp appeared in the TV show Smallville is the voice of jorel Sarah Douglas showed up more recently on the show Supergirl as a Kryptonian named jinda colroz and while he hasn't appeared on any Superman related content since Jack O'Halloran appeared on the podcast how did this get made and told many stories about his time on the set of Superman including having to put Christopher Reeve in his place it's worth a listen if you're interested in more behind the scenes gossip despite the production of Superman 2 having a layer of controversy the successful results cannot be denied whether you prefer the original theatrical version or the Donner cut the film has something for everybody superhero team-ups have existed in comic books since their Inception whether it's Superman and Batman Green Lantern and green arrow mashing together two popular characters is always a way to ramp up the excitement so When approaching the Christopher Reeve Superman who could possibly match his natural Charisma and magnitude why Richard Pryor of course that's right today on DC Revisited we're taking a look at one of the strangest team-ups in film history with Richard Lester's Superman 3. [Music] if you've been watching our series you've seen that it's been no easy task getting Superman to the big screen given the mess of a production that Superman 2 was producers needed to get things in order behind the scenes but before we can get into the Superman 3 that we did get we first need to look at what Donner's original plan for the film was Richard Donner had originally intended on making four Superman films he would direct the first two then he would pass directing duties onto his writer Tom mankiewicz while Donner would help with scripting he even planned on Brainiac being the main villain for the third film once he was fired however all plans seized and mankowitz left with him the celkines not having any of their creative Assets in place outside of Richard Lester decided to move forward anyway you may have noticed just how powerful the celkines are when it comes to this franchise one of the craziest facts to come up when it comes to Superman 3 is that it's an independent film sure it's ridiculously expensive but by definition of the word it's still entirely independent Warner Brothers provided the distribution but the money for the production was entirely put up by the celkines Alexander and Ilya also own the TV rights due to this the salkines had unimaginable control over the series and because of that they made some rather interesting decisions Alexander and Elia salkind did not want to just repeat the same beats of the first film with the success of Star Wars and Star Trek moving into film Ilia wanted to go further into the Sci-Fi and comic book space so likely taking a bit of inspiration from Donner Elia wrote an outline where Superman teams up with Supergirl in order to defeat Brainiac and Mr missile Plick Brainiac would troll Superman at one point and make him turn bad sounds like a pretty interesting story right well selkind was going to have Superman and Supergirl oblivious to the fact that they're related and then develop a romance between the two of them so if you were thinking that the one thing missing from Superman was incest then you're on the same page as Ilia thankfully everyone else involved felt this was crazy and decided to go in a different direction however some elements of celkind's outline remained while Brainiac was excised the idea of a super villain controlling Superman and forcing him to do evil things was not while producers felt that setting up a character to control soups would be too difficult for children to understand they use pre-established Canon of kryptonite being his one weakness and altering it slightly Richard Pryor got his job from an interview on Johnny Carson where he proclaimed his love for Superman too they even wrote the script completely around his participation to the point that Richard Pryor actually feels like the lead character not Superman salkind has defended this Choice by stating that this is simply an episode in The Saga of Superman rather than one of the pillars of his journey but it's still one of the most common criticisms the salkines went to two of their writers from the first two films David and Leslie Newman if you remember these were the two that provided most of the hamminess that Donner would bring Tom mankiewicz in to get rid of so while their names are involved in the first none of their actual work was used they then provided the rewrites for Lester's reshoots of Superman 2. but given Lester's tone and Pryor's involvement producers were hoping that the Newman's comedic sensibilities would be a perfect combination Richard Lester actually makes some very interesting choices here unlike the second film where they were trying to blend the work of donners with Lester's newly shot footage here the film is 100 Lester's as the viewer this makes for much less jarring transitions between Aesthetics now the entire film is established with Lester's long static takes there's more of a cohesiveness in style since all the elements align for the entire movie that's not entirely a good thing though Christopher Reeve returned to his role of Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent but it took some convincing he hadn't been happy with how Richard Donner was fired from the second film especially given that Donner helped with his casting and he had been relatively unknown at the time then there was the script Reeve would later write about Newman's scripting style in his autobiography in one scene in this script Superman would be in pursuit of Lex Luthor identified by his bald head and grab him only to realize he had captured Telly Savalas who would remark love you baby and offer Superman a lollipop Reeves concerns that the Newmans were making Superman just as campy as Adam West's Batman seemed to be true so he turned down the third film given how close to the start of production they were the producers immediately went on a search for a new Superman Jeff Bridges and Kurt Russell were considered and John Travolta was even approached but he ultimately turned it down just days before cameras were set to get rolling Tony Danza was cast as Superman um excuse me what thankfully that was the same reaction as Richard Lester who was horrified salkin's decision in desperation Lester contacted Reeve again begging him to reconsider he said he would but only if he was given more input on the script the dispute was settled and Reeve still suited up as the Man of Steel Superman 3 story should almost be looked at as a spin-off movie Mostly follows Richard Pryor's Gus Gorman's climb up the corporate ladder I'm not kidding he goes from unemployed to scamming his company to creating a Kryptonite alternative in no time whatsoever his tenacity is unmatched heck his plan against the company is even reused in office space but Peter there's not much money that's the beauty of it each withdrawal it's a fraction of a cent that's too small to notice but you take a few thousand withdrawals a day you space it out over a couple of years that's a few hundred thousand dollars it's like Superman three Superman himself has considerably less to get up to in this film he rescues a few people goes to a class reunion and turns into a bad guy and how does the ultimate good guy turn bad well Gus creates synthetic Kryptonite and replaces a key element that he can identify with tar from cigarettes so it's smoking that turns Superman bad ah you really can't make this stuff up eventually Superman turns into two different people and fights himself in a junkyard it's the highlight of the movie and it's over before you even can know what hits you as you can probably expect Superman saves the day and even gets Gus a new job in the process it's a weird ending it's not a surprise that some of the cast had reservations about the story most of the main casts from the previous two films returned here now that he no longer had to share screen with giant stars like Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando Christopher Reeve received top billing for the first time in the series Reed was at the absolute peak of his physical form here and really felt he had a command of the role while the Clark Kent that he presented in the first two films is rather bumbling and clumsy the Clark here seems to have found his footing in the world a bit more there's still some of those trademark ticks but he mostly presents Clark as a much more confident person than he was Prior a growth that often goes overlooked while only appearing briefly Margot Kidder does return as Lois Lane as does Jackie Cooper as Perry White but the member of The Daily Planet who gets the largest bump in screen time is Jimmy Olsen played by Mark McClure accompanying Clark during his trip back to Smallville photographer always goes after a story while it was rumored for years that Gene Hackman refused to return to the role due to his relationship with Donner this only applied to his work on Superman too in regards to the rest of the series Hackman felt that he shouldn't be the sole villain for Superman to face so he declined to return in this film given that Hackman later returned for his role in Superman 4 this seems to ring true in lieu of Lex Luthor Robert Vaughn took on the role of Ross Webster he was already rather famous from his role in Man from Uncle Frank langello was actually salkin's first choice for the villain role he wanted him as he was much more unknown and he felt that would serve us the role better instead the studio preferred to have a more famous face and asked Vaughn to be cast the celkines relented as Warner didn't often have big demands of them while the role is really similar to Lex Luthor he almost feels like a bond villain especially with his Grand base over-the-top plan and ridiculous ski resort on top of the skyscraper never mind he's literally just Lex Luthor except instead of underground he's high in the sky oh well Webster's sister Vera played by Annie Ross provides one of the most insane moments of the series as she gets turned into a cyborg after being pushed into a supercomputer it's like it was written by a child instead of Miss test mocker we have Lorelei played by Pamela Stevenson the main point of her character seems to be visual stimulation given the Ilya salkin swears by this being a kids movie this character's wardrobe choice is hilarious and confusing when Clark and Jimmy visit Smallville a few people from Clark's past spring up Lana Lang played by Annette O'Toole and Brad played by Gavin O'Hara Lee you may remember these characters as the 30 year old high school students from the original film now played by different actors well now they're even more grown up and apparently still dating despite Brad being a massive jerk one of the key differences with this film versus the others outside of quality is the love interest while Margot kidder's Lois Lane took up most of Clark's affections in the first two films he instead pursues his high school sweetheart Lana Lang rumors have persisted for years that Kidder was replaced due to her voicing her displeasure over Donner's firing salkin claims that this wasn't the case though and they simply felt that the relationship had come to a logical end having already introduced Clark's high school sweetheart Lana in the first film the characters seemed primed as the next love interest while it's easy to be cynical regarding this explanation it also makes a lot of sense why bring back their relationship after wrapping it up in the previous film they needed time away from each other otherwise Clark's sacrifice at the end of two is for nothing the opening credits here are very different and set the tone early the first two films featured extraordinary views of traveling through space really setting up the grand nature of this story while we are given the same credit design the backdrop is considerably less impressive and it seems to go on forever it's just bit after bit so if there's any question the viewer had regarding the film's tone that is answered within the first few minutes while most of the locations are rather Bland the chemical Factory is an absurdly impressive set piece when you see how practical it is shot at a brand new chemical Factory the pyrotechnic cruise set up just outside the zone of some very flammable gas so when you watch this scene just know that all it would have taken was for the winds to shift and send some errant Embers in that direction and the whole place would go up in a ball of flame crazy when production finally wrapped in Pinewood Studios in London the salkines thought they had a Surefire hit with the popularity of both the Superman character as well as Richard Pryor Spirits were high Ken Thorne returned to score the music which doesn't manage to stand out outside of the ReUse John Williams score fresh off the success of Flashdance Giorgio morador was brought in to provide some music but his contributions were barely used in the finished product he even completed a full synthesizer version of main title march from Superman 2. and it sounds weird foreign ers the flying effects here are really impressive and it's clear that Reeve really has the body language of flight nailed down which makes Superman's lack of screen time even more frustrating and three opened on June 17 1983 to a total weekend gross of 13.3 million dollars this was only just shy of Superman 2's 14 million so the studio was happy unfortunately the film didn't manage to keep that success going and wrapped up its worldwide run with 81 million well short of the 100 million plus grosses of the first two films it's no surprise given the audiences were mixed and critics hated it the most common criticisms were the lack of Superman the overt campiness and the focus on Richard Pryor even looking at the theatrical trailer Pryor is treated as the main character and Superman feels like more of a participant while Pryor was a very popular comedian at the time people going to see a Superman film were going for the guy in the cape not prior so the criticisms should have been expected but it wasn't just critics that disliked the film Christopher Reeve openly lambasted it saying that he would never take on the role of Superman again like the first two films a TV version was produced that featured extra footage taking criticisms into account producers replaced the opening credits with a more traditional credit scroll in space fans don't seem to share the same reverence for this TV version as they do the others and with scenes like this who can blame them [Music] over the years the film has received a fair share of criticism showing up on bad movie podcasts and being derided by its stars have almost gotten this film a mythical status which is impressive given that it's not even the worst film in the franchise but we'll get into that in a few episodes the film is currently available on Blu-ray as well as the streaming service HBO Max Richard Pryor left the comic book world and returned to the world of Comedy until his unfortunate passing in 2005. a Neto tool actually starred as Martha Kent on the TV show Smallville this is clearly the most involved any of these actors has been with DC since three films given that the other actors that pop up in this series are nothing more than Cameo roles Christopher Reeve Superman has always been a symbol of hope I say this to remind you of all the good things that Reef Superman provided us over the years because it's time to get into the bad in today's DC Revisited we're looking at the film that briefly ended the franchise with Superman 4 the Quest for Peace foreign [Music] were The Shepherd of the Superman series since the beginning their love for the character and control of all aspects has been well documented in this series so far but with the failures of both Superman 3 and Supergirl the celkines began to question their involvement taking a break from the superhero genre they produced Santa Claus the Movie which was also a commercial failure under intense Financial pressure and thinking the superhero genre had run its course the salkines sold the rights to the character at the Khan's Film Festival to the Canon film group if you're not quite aware of the Canon film group let's do a brief summary Canon dominated the cheap movie scene in the 80s headed by Menachem Golan Canon was producing upwards of 40 films a year and how did they manage that when other much larger Studios produced considerably less well by keeping their budgets absolutely microscopic if you wanted your movie made cheap then they were your people so you could say that Superman was now in questionable hands Christopher Reeve had been so angry at the handling of Superman 3 and wasn't comforted by the efforts of Supergirl that it was still a question of whether or not he would even return to the role without a script in mind the new producers approached Reeve with the idea that he would be able to craft the story himself not only that but they would produce whatever he wanted for his next movie and he would get a significant pay bump and suddenly like magic Reeve had a change of heart and was on board to return but there were still many other elements that needed to be in place Superman 2 and 3 director Richard Lester moved on from the directing gig wanting to try something else Reeve really wanted to step behind the camera himself and even ended up directing some second unit stuff but he was ultimately looked at as too inexperienced instead ice fell on Swamp Thing director Wes Craven Craven was desperate to widen his portfolio and thought the superhero film could really showcase his talent unfortunately star Christopher Reeve failed to get along with him and insisted he be replaced before filming got underway having just directed the film Iron Eagle starring Lou Gossett Jr Sydney J Fury was brought aboard to direct Canon believed he could make an action movie for a reasonable budget which was his main selling point while Fury would jump at the opportunity the highly stressful production nearly tanked his career when it came to crafting a story Canon targeted young screenwriters Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Connor who had just written the box office hit the Jewel of the Nile starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner their understanding of both action and comedy made them the perfect candidates for a Superman film given his activism at the time Reeve wanted the film to involve disarming the world of nuclear arms the Cold War was still a hot button topic so all the pieces seemed to align even if it was a little on the nose the story would entail Superman ridding the world of all of its nuclear arms and hurling them into the sun Lex Luthor would return as the villain and create an evil clone of Superman named nuclear man which he would then have to defeat it's a pretty basic story but after the failure of Superman 3 getting back to the basics wasn't necessarily A Bad Thing but Reeve wasn't the only one that had a bad time on Superman 3 and therefore didn't want to return Lois Lane herself Margo Kidder had to be convinced that her role would be more significant than just a cameo she grew to regret this decision though as her and Reeve often butted heads on set claimed Reeves ego was out of control due to his having a hand in the story the rest of the Daily Planet cast was brought back with Jackie Cooper returning as Perry white and Mark McClure as Jimmy Olsen but their scenes were brief miraculously they were able to bring Gene Hackman back and he seems to Relish in the silliness going on around him but they'd make the odd decision of cutting out most of his material originally in the First Act he was supposed to have failed attempts at making a nuclear man he even creates this kind of Neanderthal version that is wearing well not much of anything I'm going to assume they cut this scene because it's very distracting for a kids movie instead of bringing back Ned Beatty or Valerie Perrin the studio wanted someone younger as Lex's sidekick so Jon Cryer was cast as Lex's nephew Lenny crier had just starred as ducky and Pretty in Pink So he was a huge get for them he'd probably second guess this decision though once Christopher Reeve told him during production that the film would be terrible but it was a good opportunity at the time originally the writers wanted Christopher Reeve to play nuclear man since he was supposed to be a clone of Superman they felt this could further show off Reeves dynamic range and make for a more interesting villain But ultimately this was nixed in favor of casting first-time English actor Mark pillow in order to forego pillow's accent and show the connection to Luthor Hackman actually dubbed over all of nuclear man's Lines no you have my voice feeling that they needed another female lead Muriel Hemingway was brought in as the daughter of the new Daily Planet owner her character Lacey Warfield is an uppity New Yorker who has clearly been given everything by her father her entire life nuclear man was originally supposed to have this weird obsession with Lacey that was an interesting through line however with all of the cuts most of this ended up on The Cutting Room floor so his kidnapping of Lacey really comes out of nowhere and somebody probably should have told them that there's no gravity in space the budget of the film was originally intended to be 36 million dollars which was similar to Superman 3. however just before filming Canon entered intense Financial turmoil and slashed the budget down to a mere 17 million at less than half the budget of the prior films Superman 4 was doomed from the get-go many key production members from the Superman series had been replaced by inexperienced Israeli crew that Canon provided one of the most egregious examples of budget cuts is the scene where Superman goes to the United Nations what should be a thousand extras in the middle of a bustling city as Superman walks up the steps of the U.N is downgraded to Superman walking in front of a few people and some pigeons on his way to an auditorium it's very distracting the effects work here can best be described as muddy every effect shot is so dark and inconsistent Christopher Reeve's suit always looks faded against the dark backdrop of space I mean if this can even be considered space because most of the time it's just black with no stars then there's the repeat shots trying to save more money they constantly repeated flying shots and just stuck them in front of a different location it becomes very distracting when they use it multiple times within a minute I didn't edit that that is literally just the same shot repeated over and over yikes usually the opening credits of a Superman film are a sight to behold they are Grand and epic and absolute spectacle so here we have um the complete opposite of that this weird crayon looking text is what we receive instead with little to no flourishes outside of the strange particle Trail on the text it serves as a warning for what's to come while the production was rather schlocky the writer still did their best to create a compelling story they brought Clark back to Smallville where his mother had passed and he has to decide what's to be done with the farm it's a surprisingly grounded problem for someone dealing with such extraordinary circumstances but the budget cuts reared their head yet again and rather than filming on the original Kent Farm which was still available in Canada they shot outside of England at a farm that looked nothing like the original one yet another disconnect remember that scene from Superman 2 where Clark kisses Lois and she forgets pretty much the entire movie Lois doesn't well bad jokes aside that power was brought back in this one and he takes Lois's memory yet again but it seems they really wanted to up Superman's game and gave him even more abilities yes he can repair structures just by looking at them Superman contractors Hayden I'm sorry Lois but in emergencies come up I'll have to go there's a lot of potential with the double date between Superman and Lois and Clark and Lacey in the hands of Someone Like Richard Donner or heck even Richard Lester this would have been a comedy of errors with many close calls and tension of Clark being found out yet what's provided is just a slow paced look at two women trying to date this guy there's no fun miscommunication or anything Clark doesn't even really seem like he's struggling much with the juggling Act the original edit of the film was 134 minutes and edited down to 89 minutes this meant a ton of stuff ended up on The Cutting Room floor what's left is as Rosenthal described it a nonsensical mess take this scene of Lex stealing a single strand of Superman's hair we see it holding up a thousand pound weight must be pretty strong right apparently not or else those shears are made from Kryptonite but why on Earth would so much of the film be cut down well a negative screening in Southern California of the 134 minute version caused Canon to rethink the film this is the only time this version of the film was shown and it was thought to be lost for many years while it's unclear if this version would have been higher quality according to Rosenthal it actually made sense which was better than the film we got original Star Trek composer Alexander courage was brought in to do the music thankfully courage mostly sticks to adapting the Williams score so the film still sounds distinctly Superman but it's really hard not to feel bad for all the creative people involved in this production it's clear that they just wanted to continue the Superman Legacy properly but the budget from Canon just would not allow that to happen Superman 4 the Quest for Peace opened in the United States on July 24 1987. while past films had a strategy of staggered releases this was released in most territories in July and while Warner Brothers was in charge of the film's domestic release Cannon headed up International distribution this meant the film had significantly less reach than the other Superman films and resulted in a total box office of just 36 million dollars Word of Mouth probably didn't help we can be quite thankful for Superman 4's failure because it caused the cannon group to abandon their plans to produce a Spider-Man film it's not hard to imagine how that one would have turned out in fact after a ton of failures Canon would go bankrupt just seven years later this resulted in the Superman rights reverting back to their original owners Alexander and Ilya selkind oh thank God people who actually care about the character the film has often been regarded as the red-headed stepchild of the Superman series Reeve described it as simply a catastrophe from start to finish which is hard to disagree with while the film is included in the big Superman Motion Picture Anthology Blu-ray set it easily has the least amount of supplemental material compared to the other films but where it impresses are the deleted scenes 30 of the 40 minutes of the film that were cut out after the disastrous California screening can be found here and they're a very interesting look into what the film could have been while the effects work is clearly still very poor you can see why everyone agreed to do this movie in the first place it was a good story that was simply lost in the name of penny pinching while we've discussed all the cameos the Superman actors have had on the show Smallville the biggest return to the franchise was actually Jon Cryer he would return to the DC Universe as Lex Luthor in the CW Show Supergirl and as the official Lex for the arrowverse so you could say that Lenny got quite the glow up unfortunately 1995 saw Christopher Reeve become paralyzed from a tragic accident and with this came the end of his Superman character but Reeve still represented the same symbol of Hope as he did when he donned the red and blue tights his activism and drive were Inspirations to not only the disabled Community but to society as a whole his death in 2004 was not only saying goodbye to a wonderful person and actor but it was saying goodbye to the first person that made us believe a man can fly as our time with Christopher Reeve Superman draws to a close another superhero looms large but that's a tale for next time join us say movie time same movie channel [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: JoBlo Originals

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Keywords: joblo videos, joblo, wtf happened to, wtf happened to this celebrity, wtf happened to this movie, wtf, the best movie you never saw, awfully good movies, joblo originals, movie review, review, superman superman 2, superman ii, superman iii, superman iv, the quest for peace, superman christopher reeve, dc, superman 3, richard pryor superman, richard donner, margot kidder, gene hackman lex luthor, superman cannon

Id: yeAj3dVl-vU

Length: 65min 43sec (3943 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2023