Nowadays, the production of a big-budget superhero film is such a public event that the term “behind-the-scenes” no longer feels applicable. We all saw how fanboy outrage lent Zack Snyder’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice” a malignant air months before its official release, and the hoopla surrounding the reshoots of “Suicide Squad” only re-enforced the notion that DC needed David Ayer’s film to be a big hit.
It wasn’t always like this. Of course, it seems somewhat shocking to even ponder the notion, but superhero films were not always a guaranteed recipe for success. If you had been talking to a trio of confident European investors back in 1978 who were interested in turning America’s most beloved superhero into a feature-film property, a lot of people would have probably told you that you were crazy. And yet, that’s exactly what happened during the production of the original “Superman” film, helmed by “Lethal Weapon” and “The Omen” director Richard Donner, which laid the precedent for every caped crusader to grace the big screen since.
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In a trio of documentaries from 2001, Mark McClure, who played Jimmy Olsen in Donner’s film, walks us through an engaging history of the film’s inception, production, release and subsequent cultural impact. Although the notion of an actual feature-length film devoted to something as ostensibly juvenile as a comic book rubbed many movie-lovers the wrong way back then, former Warner Brothers Marketing President Andrew Fogelson was confident that the character’s inherent charm and likability would be able to reach a much wider audience than anyone previously thought possible.
“People knew Superman. People knew who the character was,” Fogelson says when addressing bygone fears that Donner’s “Superman” would end up regurgitating the campy elements of Adam West’s “Batman” T.V. show. “This country, if not the entire world, had embraced the character. I’d say that’s a good place to start.”
The doc is packed with more entertaining anecdotes, like the details of Marlon Brando’s salary for the film ($3.7 million for two weeks’ work — an unheard-of number then, and still impressive today) and how Donner got the call for the job while he was sitting on the toilet. Not surprisingly, the casting of respected actors like Brando and Gene Hackman, who plays the movie’s flamboyant original version of Lex Luthor, helped to earn the film a considerable degree of respect in the eyes of the critical community. McClure also allows us to revisit the movie’s many memorable set pieces, explains why shooting in London ended up saving the filmmakers a fortune, and discusses “Godfather” writer Mario Puzo’s extensive work on the script, which at one point was nearing 500 pages. It’s a neat bit of trivia for any Superman fan, and an interesting point of contrast when one considers how these kinds of movies are made today. [One Perfect Shot]