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AN INCON REBORN – MAKING SUPERMAN DVD

Flash back to 1978, and Superman: the Movie is smashing box office records worldwide, But even today, few realize
that the story behind the production is one of almost utter chaos: a tale of clashing egos, mismanagement and
melodrama that has become the stuff of Hollywood legend...

In 1974, producers Ilya and Alex Salkind conceived of big-screen version of Superman that would feature high
adventure, excitement and breathtaking special effects. After securing the film rights from DC Comics and arranging a
"negative pickup" deal with Warner to distribute the picture, the Salkinds recruited Godfather scribe Mario Puzo to draft
a story. But despite Puzo's reputation, the Salkinds still needed the two most precious commodities in Hollywood:
stars...and money.

After numerous rewrites, the Salkinds ended up with a 560-page screenplay for not one, but two movies, both to be
filmed back to back. And by offering then-astronomical salaries that sent shockwaves through the industry, they
enticed Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando to jump on board, and managed to secure $17 million in funding for their
epic. Now, all they needed was a finished script, a director...and a Superman.

After famed James Bond helmer Guy Hamilton bowed out, the Salkinds tapped Richard Donner to take over the
directorial reigns, then red-hot after the huge box office success of his horror hit The Omen. Bringing screenwriter Tom
Mankiewicz on board to refashion the script, the pair reimagined Superman: The Movie as a blockbuster entertainment
that would appeal to modern audiences yet not betray the traditions of the original comic. Casting then unknown
Christopher Reeve in the dual role of Superman and Clark Kent, and tapping some of the best behind-the-scenes
talent in the business, production began...

But what was to follow has since become a legendary tale of Hollywood excess. The challenge of achieving the
project's special effects, the budget woes, and the behind-the-scenes flare-ups would generate enough controversy for
ten other movies combined. And after shooting all of what was to become Superman: the Movie and a reported 70% of
Superman II, Donner was unceremoniously fired form the project. Though Superman: The Movie would go on to be a
huge box office success, just what did really go on behind the scenes?

Now, over twenty years later, two documentarians have gone back to Metropolis to not only fully restore and remaster
Superman for the digital age, but also uncover the real story behind the production. Arriving May 1st from Warner
Home Video, Superman: The Movie - The Special Edition is a feature-packed DVD with just about everything a fan
could hope for, and the film has never looked or sounded better.

DVDFILE recently talked with Restoration Supervisor and Special Edition Producer Michael Thau and DVD Co-
Producer Jonathan Gaines about the project, as well as sitting in for a roundtable discussion with Director Richard
Donner and Screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz to talk about the now-legendary production. So up, up, and away... let's go
behind the scenes of Superman: The Movie - The Special Edition...
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INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER JONATHAN GAINES

DVDFILE: How did you get started as a DVD producer? What was your background?

Jonathan Gaines: I was working at Republic Pictures as a marketing manager for home video products, which
basically means I was in charge of the creation of the marketing materials: posters, trailers and any type of sales
material that the sales staff would need, working with promotions and publicity. Just basically shepherding projects
through all the different departments. Within a few weeks or months of working there, I discovered that Republic
owned the home video rights to the original Highlander. I knew that it was a pretty popular film and had a following. I
was also aware of a different version of the film existing that hadn't been shown in the U.S.; a longer version that had
been shown in Europe. I also knew that fans wanted to see it but there had been no official release of that version in
the States. After looking at the videotape and laserdisc versions of it, I was horrified at the quality of the transfer and
proposed to the bosses that we think about doing a special edition of it with a whole new transfer, laserdisc, the whole
nine yards. They were interested and went from there and contacted the film's producers. The producers were
interested, so once we decided to do it, the hard part was finding all of the elements because they were all stored in
London and really weren't cataloged very well.

So I produced the Highlander 10th anniversary laserdisc and VHS release at Republic and through that whole process
I was able to meet a lot of people who worked within the laserdisc community, people at places like THX and Dolby. I
got real hands-on experience on what it took to restore a film and research elements and material, how to produce an
audio commentary, producing supplemental material. This was just icing on the cake for me because I was already a
laserdisc fan and a fan of special editions and now to have a chance to actually produce my own was a real thrill and I
saw it as something that I really wanted to do full-time. This was about a year before DVD launched, so I knew that
DVD was going to be the next thing and decided that I wanted to focus all my attention on DVD, in terms of positioning
myself more as a DVD producer than a laserdisc producer. Becoming familiar with DVD made me realize how much
opportunity there was to do different types of supplemental material.

Warner Brothers called me up one day and said, "How would you like to produce an audio commentary for Demolition
Man." So that was kind of the start of my relationship with Warner Brothers. From there I went on to produce the
Contact Special Edition DVD, which was, I believe, the first DVD special edition. So I continued to work on Warner
Brothers titles, but at the same time I was also working with Artisan/Live, consulting on some of their stuff, QCing a lot
of their masters and their transfers and writing menus for their stuff. I was doing commentaries for some of their earlier
stuff. It just kept on growing and I've been doing it ever since.

DF: At what point were you brought into Superman?

JG: As I was in my beginnings with Warner Brothers, I was asking about certain titles and one of them was always
Superman. The answer was always, "Well, we don't know what we want to do with it yet. Plus all the materials are in
really bad shape and we don't know where all the original elements are" etc… It was just sort of put off and didn't really
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go anywhere until Michael Thau got involved with it through Richard Donner's office and coming at from the point of
the director wanting to do it and be involved in it. Warners' interest grew and the timing was right. I was brought in to
work with Michael in producing the DVD because Michael really was focused on the restoration, the re-edit and the
remix and I was brought in to work on the DVD's supplemental material. We ended up working together on this thing
for almost a year. I got to be a little more involved in things like the sound mixing. I wouldn't say I was making any
decisions but I was part of it and could offer my opinion coming from a fan's point of view and from a DVD perspective.

Of course, while he was down on the dubbing stage supervising the mix, I was upstairs going through 200 cans of
16mm negative, looking at all the "b-roll" that Michael had unearthed in London. I was trying to figure out what footage
we could use and what we had here. I had to go at it on an editing table with a little positive 16mm viewer, but since it
was a negative, I had to take my digital video camera, switch it to the negative setting so I could try and make out what
I was seeing in my viewfinder in positive. So that took quite some time, going through all that footage by hand and
some of the footage was just in horrible condition. All the splicing tape was falling apart, so I'd being going through
something and all of the sudden the splice would break and I'd have to stop and re-tape it and log it. It was pretty much
like being an archeologist, going through this stuff. You never knew what you were going to find from day to day or
what you were going to need.

DF: Was it more difficult with two producers on the project or did your strengths compliment the working relationship?

JG: This project was so huge, I don't think there's any way only one of us could have handled it. I just don't think I
could have handled all the different aspects, just the scope of it. The fact that we were both fans of this film and loved
this film so much, it made it all more enjoyable to get together and work on it and get excited about what we had found.
Michael and I have forged, I think, not only a really good friendship, but a good working collaboration. I really enjoyed
working with him, to write with him, edit with him and bounce ideas off each other. I don't think the DVD would be as
good as it is if it wasn't the two of us working on it. So it was definitely a plus but it's actually the first time I've worked
with another producer on a DVD.

DF: Were you apprehensive going in thinking there might be too much overlap or conflicting ideas?

JG: My initial reservation when I found out that I would be working with someone on it was- is this person going to do it
justice? Would they do the DVD and the film justice? After meeting Michael and seeing how passionate he was about
it, all that went away and we both realized what our strengths were. He's an editor and he's had more experience
working with actual film than I have. He's directed and edited feature films and that's his strength. I couldn't have done
what he did. I think he realized that my strength is being a DVD producer and what it took to make a DVD; the physical
limitations of DVD and working with the budget on the DVD side. He handled the budget on the restoration side. I don't
think there was any time that there was overlap of work or conflict.

He was making decisions and talking about all these film elements and aspects that just went right over my head and it
was a great learning experience for me, being involved on the actual film side of it; being on the dubbing stage, being
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at the facility that was doing some of the opticals and touch ups, meeting with the sound editor and mixing with the
music editor. All of that stuff was a great learning experience for me.

DF: What were the challenges of creating a special edition for a film that was over twenty years old?

JG: The biggest challenge was finding what was available to us. The biggest problem for a DVD producer is not having
any type of behind-the-scenes type of footage from when a movie was being made. When you're making a
documentary, you can't just have talking heads throughout the whole thing. So if you have on-camera interviews,
you're only left with the feature to cut to and that can get kind of boring after a while. So it was a challenge to find this
footage. Then, the other challenge is getting people to want to participate and to grant interviews. We were so
fortunate, everyone we approached said yes.

DF: Were you surprised that so many people agreed to be involved?

JG: It soon became apparent to us that there was such a great love for this film and everybody had such good feelings
about the film, even though it was a bitch to make at the time, that people were glad to be associated with it twenty
years later. For people like Marc McClure to come to us and say, "I'm here. Use me however you want. I just want to
be a part of this DVD" we thought it was great and a great opportunity to use him as the host of the main documentary.
It added even more credibility to our documentary to have somebody host it that actually worked on the film.

DF: I was a bit surprised to see Gene Hackman in there.

JG: He was one of the last ones to come into place. The fact that we had about a year to work on this is the only
reason he's in it. Otherwise, we could have never worked around his schedule. A lot of it was luck. John Williams, his
schedule was tight, he was scoring The Patriot and lives back east most of the time. And again, if we had the standard
three-month decree of special editions, we would have never got John Williams. I think he was one of the last
interviews that we did. Richard Donner helped us as well by sending personal letters to Gene, Chris, Margot... They all
really respect Dick and love him and would do these things for him.

DF: You spoke about the challenges of doing a special edition for a twenty-year-old film. What are the benefits of doing
a special edition for a film that is now two decades old?

JG: I think the biggest benefit is that you have history on your side. You wouldn't be working on a film twenty years
later if it weren't a special film. To be able to look at it from a totally different perspective, more of a historical
perspective as opposed to a promotional film perspective, is a big plus. The distance of time helps people to have
different perspective on the film. I think if you had done this documentary after the film was made, most people
wouldn't have been involved because there were a lot of hard feelings when Superman II was being made (without
Donner). People like Stuart Baird, Richard Donner and a few others, they were all fired after I and not hired for II. I
don't think that people would have been involved with it back then but time heals all wounds and I think that allows
people to get over that. Obviously, all these people have gone on to be bigger and more successful than they could
have ever dreamed of back then. There's none of that baggage that you have to deal with.
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INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER MICHEL THAU

DVDFILE: What has been your working relationship with Richard Donner over the years that led you to your work on
the Superman Special Edition?

Michael Thau: In 1982, I was sent down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana by Columbia post production as an assistant editor
on The Toy. I wasn't directly working for Donner, I was working for Richard Harris, who was the editor on that. But I
worked around Dick and saw he's this bigger than life guy with this huge voice and always up and happy. Every time it
was someone's birthday, at dailies he'd have beer and wine and birthday cakes. It was like a big party down there,
especially considering the subject matter of the film. Later, in 1984, I was hired by Stuart Baird, here in Los Angeles,
on Ladyhawke as an assistant. They had come back from location and they were cutting at Donner's house, which
luckily is only like seven minutes away from where I live. That's how I started working around Dick. I was fairly
outspoken, always giving them ideas and stuff, which is not the British way for an assistant, so Stuart was always
frowning.

Part of the way through post, both Dick and Lauren (Shuler-Donner) asked me to be their assistant on their next
picture and I chose to work for Dick because I wanted to work for a director rather than a producer. Dick's next project
was The Goonies and Lauren's was St. Elmo's Fire. Tom Mankiewicz was around the cutting rooms. He kind of served
the same function on Ladyhawke as he did on Superman; he really is a creative consultant. And this is where I started
hearing the stories about how Superman was made. Stuart cut both films. Those three were always talking about
Superman, which had been released five or six years before. And Superman was one of my favorite films, and Dick
was one of the best directors I'd ever seen.

Dick became kind of a surrogate father to me and I guess I was a surrogate son to him in a lot of ways, not having any
kids. And over the years I've tried to always be involved with him in a creative way as well as hard core production
wise. I've directed inserts on some of his films, some second unit (including the condom commercial in Lethal Weapon
2), I directed a "Tales from the Crypt." On some of the films I did the video playback the characters watch on TV sets.
It establishes a lot of things about the characters.

In Lethal Weapon, there was a lot of playback, like the Three Stooges, etc. Scrooged had an enormous amount that
actually carried the story. In Goonies, Sloth watched TV a lot and one thing was the movie The Sea Hawk. We actually
shot some things that were made to look like Sea Hawk so that Sloth could learn how to stick a knife in a sail and slide
down it. That bit was not actually in Sea Hawk, but in another swashbuckler film of the time, but the rest of the stuff in
Sea Hawk was so good for what we wanted that we ended up just shooting that little bit and putting it in to seem like it
was. But that's the wrong movie …

DF: When the idea for the Superman: Special Edition came up, was the DVD the first consideration? Were they just
planning to release it without the restoration?
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MT: Well, Warner was obviously going to make a DVD of Superman at some point, but I think around October of 1999,
I called up Dick and said, "Are you ever going to do a DVD of Superman?" (lowering voice to emulate Donner's
trademark boom) "Great idea kid." So his assistant at this time knew Tom Lesinski, the head of worldwide marketing at
Warner Brothers Home Video and set up a meeting. I went in and pitched a couple of ideas for things we knew we
could put on the DVD, like a new cut, new sound, a commentary track and a limited documentary with new interviews.
Everything else on the DVD was discovered along the way.

Paul Hemstreet was there; he is their special features executive. He interacts with the directors or producers and
production companies for Warner Home Video and supervises production on any new material. He also budgets any
work on the films themselves, like new mixes, director's cuts, etc. It was Paul's vision that allowed us to continue to
work on the many extras as we found more and more material. He put me together with Jonathan Gaines, who
produced the DVD with me and wrote the now, very substantial documentaries.

DF: What was the process for gathering all the material for the special edition of Superman?

MT: Warner Brothers had the original cut negative. It had been brought over to the United States in the mid-nineties
from Deluxe laboratory in Paris, France. I'm not sure why it was there, but probably it had been used to makes prints
for the miscellaneous territories that Warner didn't own. Besides the original negative, the studio had certain IPs
(interpositives) that were made over the years and the sound elements, mono stems, the 70mm 6-track mix, the 4-
track mix and the mono mix. In a Warner Brothers' vault in England, there were certain other important items that had
used over the years, and I was very happy to find; the cut negative on the additional scenes that had been used in
different versions including the ABC version and what was known as the Salkind international cut, AKA the KCOP
version. So the negative had been cut for those versions. There were mixes made for some of those versions too, but
they were all done in mono because, at the time, television only broadcast in mono so there was no use spending all
the money doing a new stereo mix. So those pieces of cut negative were over there in England and I had that brought
over.

The negative of the scenes I had brought over were listed as inserts to go into whichever reels they were for the
television version, they were always referenced to the ABC television version which the Salkinds made and got a
percentage of. But, believe it or not, Warner Brothers actually owned the TV rights. That's part of the rights that were
sold back by the Salkinds when they were scrambling for money to finish the film, along with a lot of other territories. It
was to Warners' and the Salkinds' advantage to have as long a TV version as possible because they got paid by the
minute and that's why it's stretched out like crazy. Stuart had nothing to do with that cut. But because the Salkinds
were the producers, they were the ones who were in charge of delivering a TV cut, so that's why they were the ones
responsible for cutting it, not Warner Brothers, even though the studio had the TV rights. But Dick had nothing to do
with that cut.

Anyway, I had all the cut negative sent over to Mo Henry, the Warner Brothers negative cutter at Technicolor. The
studio already had the film hand cleaned and Mo inspected the original negative and had Technicolor repair any weak
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splices or damaged perfs. There was a big chunk that was a dupe negative section, when Lex Luthor pulls the
Kryptonite out of the case all the way until he pushes Superman into the pool. The original cut negative had been
damaged by some lab, and somewhere someone combined YCM separations to make the dupe section. The colors
were slightly out of registration. We never did find the negative for that. There was a dupe section for all of that and
then there was damage in other places, torn frames, stuff like that which had been backed by mylar. They would put
clear mylar on the back of the negative so that the tear wouldn't pull any farther and it would hold the film together.

Anyway, when I came on, Warner Brothers knew where all the other Superman material was. This turned out to be the
pack up of the original cutting room, which is the positive (print), and the mag sound and paperwork, plus the negative
from the shoot. It was all stored with all the rest of the Salkind films, who had not paid their storage bills for 22-years.
The storage had been moved around from facility to facility and when one company got sick of storing all of it, they
sold it to some other storage facility, mostly in England. I think a lot of it stayed at Pinewood, but after a while they sent
it off because they had never been able to get any money out of the Salkinds. Another storage facility was always
willing to hold it because they knew one day it would be worth something. But the build up on the storage bill was
astronomical. It finally ended up being at a facility owned by Canal+ Studios. Canal+ had recently been doing a lot of
films with Warner Brothers. So they made a deal and Canal+ allowed the material to be released. It was just wonderful.

There was six tons of stuff that was just Superman I. That includes the negative. They shot 1.8 million feet of negative.
Not all of it was used, a lot of it wasn't even printed: "b-neg", the bad takes not worth printing. At first, they gave me the
inventory of the stuff and they said, "Why don't you have them send over what will help you start your work now and
then we'll have the rest of it sent over on a boat because they didn't want to have everything sent over via plane
because it was SIX TONS! The inventory of the negative was pretty simple, there was only six or seven items listed.
One item was something like 4,232 boxes of negative. But what this huge catalog was mostly was the positive from the
cutting room.

But one thing not cataloged was the production sound that was recorded on the set. I tried desperately to have them
come up with it, so that if we needed to replace some dialog or whatever, we'd have it. But they said they could never
find it. That drove us crazy because that's a very important thing that you would pack up, the production sound. They
knew where everything was but they kept telling me that they couldn't find it and it didn't exist, it was gone. We
checked everywhere. We checked here in the United States, everywhere. Same for the loop lines. There was a lot of
looping done on that film. I think Brando is close to 100% looped in the whole film because the on-set mechanisms and
the projectors made a lot of sound. And they got a number of loop days on Brando's contract. For that kind of money
you're damn sure you get all your money's worth.

I went through the inventory of the stuff that was in the cutting room and it always indicated what it was; picture, track
or whatever. Immediately, I had anything pulled that said "artist's test" on it, cause I was hoping they'd be screen tests.
I pulled anything that referenced any kind of visual effects, not knowing what it would be. I pulled anything that had any
cutting reference, so any black and white dupes of the TV cut or this cut or that cut and that helped me reconstruct
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scenes. Also I had pulled items that were nebulously identified. I remember one in particular; "miscellaneous 1"
masters."

Now remember, Superman I and Superman II were shot simultaneously, most of II at least, and it took a long time to
figure out the organization of the cutting rooms. We couldn't figure out between Superman part I and Superman part II,
it just took a long time to sort what everything was. I had an assistant editor named Elaine Andrianos, who I drove
crazy trying to figure out all this stuff. There was so much visual effects stuff shot. There were so many units that shot
and the way they coded the stuff was, it was always a puzzle. We finally figured it out after a long time and it made
sense. Apparently what they would do was, Stuart had two cutting rooms. He physically had two cutting rooms. The
dailies came in for Superman I, which was very well documented, and it went to the Superman I cutting room and it
was sunk. And the same for Superman II, so he cut both and it wasn't too hard for him because you could only shoot at
a certain rate and he's a pretty quick editor and he could keep up with both films. He could stay up to camera. So when
something came in for Superman II, he would go over to that cutting room and cut it, give it to those assistants and
then back to stuff from Superman I.

When the first batch of stuff arrived, it was the beginning of an incredible journey going back in time twenty-two years.
It was fascinating to go through it all and, of course, the screen tests were just amazing to watch the first time. We
never found Chris Reeve's cut screen test. Dick had covered that scene; shot it from a number of different angles
because he was really trying to sell Warner Brothers on hiring Chris. The rest of the screen tests were just shot from
one angle. I only found the trims to Chris' test, but remember that they hadn't found the production sound. So I was
really disappointed that I couldn't recreate Chris' screen test from the negative that I hoped had his material in it, with
the production sound.

I remember one day in the Warners' vaults when a batch of boxes came in. Joe Botano, this colorful old guy who
works in the vaults, opened a shipping box. Inside was the box labeled misc. 1" masters. I opened it up, not knowing
what would be inside, and inside were six boxes listing 3M4, and 1M2, etc. Joe and I looked at each wide-eyed
knowing what those designations are. That's how music takes are slated. Could it really be? Is this really John Williams
original recordings?!?!? Indeed they were… and first generation of remarkably clean recordings.

Also we found a ton of effects tests. Just fascinating. Flying tests, running tests, Phantom Zone and even costume
tests. And all shot beautifully in 35mm and scope, the format of the film. Some of them were backdated to the Guy
Hamilton era that they had kept in the editing rooms. Remember, when you're doing tests, you need an editor to
prepare it for projection and all that stuff. So that stuff had been kept around in the cutting rooms. But when I found all
these effects tests, and they were so good, we didn't want to slow down the main making of Superman documentary
by digressing to effects for twenty minutes. It would ruin the flow so Jonathan and I decided to pitch them on making a
whole stand-alone piece on the effects.

The studio said O.K. after seeing some of these effects tests. So I went over to England to shoot (effect supervisor)
Roy Fields, and his demonstration on front projection. I stopped by the vaults, they had heard that I was coming, and
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when I walked in they said, "Here, we found some new stuff" and somehow magically, after being told for months that
they couldn't find it, they had a lot of the 1/4" production sound. I found about 80-85% of the original sound, including
Chris' screen tests. So after finding the negative I finally did re-create Chris' Superman test. Thank God!

I insisted on staying a few more days and going back through that vault. I rolled up my sleeves and in 90° humid
weather, I went through the whole vault with the vault guy, Toby. One invaluable item we found was the negative of the
original 16mm behind the scene shoot. This allowed Jonathan & I to build three great documentaries with this never
seen before, on-set footage.

I also found John Williams' original handwritten score for the film, which I gave to the music department at Warners.
We never found the loop lines. I went through everything looking for those 1/4" loop lines and I could never find them.
But I did find all of John Williams' original 24-track recordings that he mixed down to create the final masters.

DF: I know some people were upset that the new DVD was only going to include eight minutes of additional footage
rather than most of the stuff from the much longer cuts.

MT: Even some people at Warner Brothers would have liked to see that but Dick wouldn't have put his name on it. The
new cut has most of the scenes the longer ABC version had in it. We added the Jor-El and Superman in the Fortress
scene. There's also the two Feeding the Babies scenes, which Dick just thought looked kind of stupid and didn't want
in this cut, so we put it as an extra on the DVD. Everything else in the ABC cut is just the Salkinds padding out scenes.
If Superman had originally come out in a long drawn out version no one would have ever gone to see it. That's not the
lightning fast paced way Dick & Stuart cut. We wouldn't be having this conversation right now. And remember the ABC
version is two parts, so the beginning of the second night you reran the main credits over again, then you had a twelve
minute recap of what you saw the night before. Now you're up to seventeen minutes. The end titles run over again, so
there's another five minutes, so now you have twenty-two minutes of just repeat footage in the second night. So, when
you do the math, it's not as long as people think it is.

DF: How did you begin the print restoration?

MT: When the six tons came over, we found that none of the negative was documented properly. There was a couple
million feet of negative and we weren't sure if it was mixed with Superman II. Luckily, they had kept it relatively apart
but that was only half of the confusion. We never knew if all of the negative was all together, or in another lab. Joe
Botano is an old lab guy who can handles negative and knows all this stuff and he spent months going through every
piece of negative and documenting it. This is where my assistant, Elaine, with Joe's help eventually found Chris'
original screen test footage, which they had kept from those early tests shoots.

We went thru the cut negative and there was a lot of non-visual effects opticals, like flops, speed-ups, slow-downs.
Stuart is notorious for tricking out film with, as I call it, editorial opticals. These had been made on a stock popular used
only in the late ‘70's called CRI, Color Reversal Internegative, instead of IP. Many of these opticals had stained over
the years. So in all those cases, we tried to find the original negative, which drove Joe crazy, and we remade the
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opticals on IP and then cut the dupe neg in to the original negative, which we had to do in a very particular way. There
was an older IP of the entire movie and, luckily, it was made before the Lex Luthor / kryptonite section was damaged.
We used this as a good element for that area.

I then retimed the whole film in the lab and that gave me an IP that we could fine tune even farther as we did the
transfer for the DVD. Normally you cut a film as a single strand negative. So "Reel 1" is one piece of negative, "Reel 2"
is one piece of negative… Superman was done as A/B printing in the lab which meant that anytime there was a
dissolve or a fade out or a fade in, that was done in the lab. There's tons of dissolves in Superman and what happens
in the lab, there's an "A" strand of "Reel 1" and a "B" strand of "Reel 1." So when you get to a dissolve, the shot that
you're dissolving out of is on the "A" strand, the incoming part of the dissolve is on the "B" strand and the lab does the
cross in printing. That way, you don't gain a generation on what would normally be an optical dissolve. That's not
uncommon for films. Mark Solomon, head of feature postproduction, didn't want me to cut into any of the negative. So
when I replaced a shot, I couldn't cut out the old shot and a lot of times it was too complicated to put it in the opposite
"A" strand and "B" strand, so I actually created the "C" strand that has most of the new negative. But the old negative
is still there with all the stains and all the grainy shots and tears. It's still there and someone can get their hands on it if
they really want to.

DF: I want to talk to you about some of the film's effects shots that were redone for the new edition.

MT: With the effects stuff, the only thing that Dick wanted to do is change the color of the suit back to it's original blue.
We didn't want to re-invent the ball, just correct it. There's a great nostalgia involved in seeing an older, but not really
dated effects movie. There's plenty of blue screen shots in Superman where the color of the suit is correct. They just
didn't have time with those ten or so shots to massage the color back in the optical printer closer to the blue that it
should have been. But we wanted to do all those digitally and that was part of the original proposal. The restoration
work was done under the auspices of feature post-production, and a great executive, Kurt Galvao. Part of his marching
orders was to end up with a film print of this new version, so I had to finish everything on film. It would have been a lot
less expensive to fix and conform all this on video, but really complicated to recreate later. So he wanted a film print,
so all the green shots were done digitally. I fixed any shots that had tears in them or excessive dirt or damage. We
fixed those digitally as well.

Then, the five cloud shots at the end of the film were so horrifically grainy compared to everything else in the film.
Everything in the film looks pretty damn good, especially projected, but those cloud shots at the end and the one shot
of him whipping around the Earth were so grainy that I decided to fix those digitally. For a couple of them, we actually
found the original cloud plate, where Brando's face comes up. I don't know how Elaine did it, but she actually found a
reference in the paperwork to the footage being from the Paramount stock library. Paramount looked up the records,
they found the shot and we got permission to scan in the original negative, which was shot flat, not scope, and digitally
we recreated that shot. We used the Superman from the original comp, because we couldn't find his blue screen
element for those shots in particular. The Brando face, they grabbed that from the original comp and then touched it up
 11
to get rid of the grain and then they did their own animation for the lightning. If you look at the lightning on the
laserdisc, during those shots up in the clouds with Superman's face, it looks horrible, really horrible. Then you look at
Pac-Titles' animation for that, it great! So we digitally fixed those cloud shots. I think there was five of them. It's still a
bit grainy because the cloud element was shot in the 1950s, and I didn't want to use a miscellaneous cloud element. I
wanted to use the same one because the bank of clouds has a particular shape to it. But I was lucky we found the
original element. The Superman element, it's so small that it was ok to grab that from the comp. They degrained it and
it makes a huge difference.

DF: What was involved with transferring the film to DVD?

MT: Warner's Technical Operations department, which bridges the very specialized gap between film, video and digital
technologies, is headed by Ned Price. He has developed the best systems for transfers in the industry. Using state-of-
the-art equipment, their transfers always start with new film elements and end with superior DVDs, high def transfers,
and now, electronic cinema transfers. I was excited to supervise this very special transfer, and we were using every
trick possible to make the film look as good as it does. I kept on pushing the colorist, Dave Ludwig, to "snap things up,"
make things more contrasty. We always pushed the color as far as we could, but then we'd back off with the red of the
suit because sometimes it would stand out too much. The telecine transfer was done on a Spirit telecine at neutral
levels, which is an excellent machine to use with older films. It really works to minimize grain. Dave then colored
Superman digitally, tape to tape, as opposed to programming on the telecine. Every once in a while Yan Yabrough,
one of the masters of this art form and a pioneering telecine colorist himself, would stick his head in the room and give
us tips to really bring the image out with some of the new equipment.

DF: How much time was spent on the video transfer?

MT: Well, I'd say a month, six weeks. Dave Ludwig was working all day on the transfer. I could just get there when I
could. I was also mixing at the same time. It was quite helpful because a colorist sits in front of the monitor working on
a scene all day and can lose objectivity. I would come in and see scenes fresh, and it was easy to see where more
color or snap would be needed, or where the suit was standing out like it was pasted on the image. I think the transfer
turned out really remarkable.

DF: How did you begin the audio restoration?

MT: As far as the restoration goes, Dick and I sat down and watched the film first and talked about restoring some of
the scenes into it. I had to talk about the stuff with Dick before we went to the DVD department and pitched them on
what we wanted to do. So we ran Dick's personal print of Superman, which was made in 1984 or 1985, and we were
just shocked to hear how mono the mix was. Dick swore, and I agreed with him too, that the titles would fly past you to
the right and the left of you and they didn't. They just stayed very in the center speaker, in mono. We got the sound
engineers up to the projection room and double-checking that everything was set up correctly. There was some stereo-
ness to the music and sound effects, so we pitched on redoing the sound.
12
DF: It was amazing and I still had the laserdisc that I was comparing back and forth.

MT: The laserdisc is actually something I want to talk about. The sound on the laserdisc, what you hear there, that's
what it actually sounded like. It's not that a laserdisc doesn't have good quality sound compared to a DVD, laserdiscs
have pretty good sound reproduction. What you're hearing was what the Dolby Stereo mix actually sounded like! It was
amazing how bad the sound was. We couldn't believe it. After a lot of talking about it we figured out what happened, a
lot of it had to do with the fact that lots of picture changes were being made at the last second while they were in the
process of mixing. They would pre-dub the dialog on one stage but then there were changes made and rather than
making the changes to the original dialog dubbing units and starting over again, they would take the pre-dub, conform
that and then remix that again on another stage. And they were beginning to lose many, many generations because of
the rushing to finish. And the newness of Dolby, sometimes the machines weren't calibrated and set up correctly so
now you have an element that has been messed up and they would use that as an element, multiple generations
down. And the sound effects, most of the sound effects those days were optical sound effects, probably mono too.
Optical sound is much worse than sound on mag stripe. Sometimes those optical sound effects would be many optical
generations down. Some of the big breaks in Krypton in the original mix were actually wood breaks and there was a
horrible electrical sound effect that was definitely an optical sound effect that they used over and over again when they
went for shock value. No pun intended. It was used a number of times just as something that would cut through and
grab your attention hopefully.

Going back to the original mix, we were shocked when we heard it. We grabbed the original 70mm full-coat that
actually had the label from the Pinewood stage on it; it had a date of November 1978. We put it up in a dubbing stage.
We had Dolby down there a couple times verifying that the set up on the Dolby units, the decoding, was correct.
Superman was the first film that was originally recorded in a 70mm 6-track split surround but here's the rub that no one
knows about but it's the truth. They mixed in split surrounds but they did not use the surrounds very much, especially in
a stereo way because it was very new and they were very scared of it. At the last second, here in America, they
brought it over to do some final mastering on the 70mm and they chickened out and the film was only released with
mono surround in the 70mm format. So they mixed it for stereo surround, but it was never released that way and the
fact is that there wasn't much difference anyway.

In 1978, Dolby was just beginning to become prominent and on their recording dubber they could put a 6-track head
up, a 4-track head up, a 3-track head or a 1-track. The 4-track would be for the standard Dolby mix: left, center, right,
surround and the Dolby system had an crossover, where anything below a certain frequency would go to a subwoofer.
The 6-track would be the same except they would have two added channels of baby-boom (low frequency bass) with
more volume. The 3-track would be for the mono stems: dialog, music and effects, and the single-track would be for
the mono mix. But they didn't have three recorders; they only had one at the time, the same here in the U.S. as well.
So they could not record simultaneous 4-track dialog, music and sound effects stems (left, center, right, and surround.)
You do a whole mix, and then you do another mix. They recorded first, the 6-track mix, then the four, then the mono
 13
mix, then the mono stems. They tried to make them one after another so they would sound the same. There really isn't
much of a difference in the 6-track or 4, except in volume and bass. But you weren't preserving your stereo stems at
that point. So, what came off the stage was the full mix or mono stems, which is one reason why we couldn't even
reconstruct anything. We only had the mono stems. With dialog it doesn't really matter that much because you
normally put the dialog down in the center channel anyway. Superman was different; they actually draped it across the
whole front three speakers, which really prevented us from using any of the original mix. It doesn't work that well and
sounds strange. Stereo was kind of a new gadget and I think they were just playing with the new toy. Dialog is best
kept in the center channel for clarity.

When I found the music, beautiful music units that were the mix-downs from John Williams' 24-track sessions and he
mixed them down for some reason into 6-tracks, maybe because he knew there was going to be a six-track mix. It took
us a while to figure out the layout; two sets of left, center, right tracks, these masters from Anvil Studios. They allowed
us to do a true stereo surround mix. Bob Garrett was our music editor and dutifully mimicked the music cuts and built
the stand alone music tracks. He also mastered the music-only track in 5.0.

But you're not going to have all this beautiful music flying around you and have the old mono effects. Supervising
sound editor Jay Nierenberg, Donner, and I sat down and ran the picture and made a list of what we called "signature"
sound effects. These were sounds that were very distinct sounds that we wanted to retain, but make sound better.
Jay's team at Soundstorm captured digitally these original effects, and reproduced them, vastly improving their
dynamics and frequency range in stereo. Examples of these are the baby's starship, Superman's x-ray eyes, and the
rings that trap the villains on Krypton. Then Soundstorm went through the film and built thousands of sound units to
completely rebuild the rest of the effects, always with an eye on the original mix. We updated old effects and designed
new ones where appropriate, like the new crystalline sound of Krypton and all the helicopter sounds. Dan Leahy,
effects re-recording mixer, obviously had the most work of anyone on Warners' Dubbing stage 'D.'

DF: So you have your "signature" sounds, but what were the deciding factors in where you would deviate from the
original? Like the first appearance of Superman. When Jor-El's mask revolves around, there's a new whoosh that goes
along with it.

MT: Donner. He told us to put a grandiose sound there. It seemed to need something. But I disagree with some people
who have reviewed that particular section in the film and said, "It lost all of its dramatic momentum because it was all
just music at that point." The music sticks through there clearly. As a matter of fact, where that whoosh is, there's
almost a hole in the music. We didn't changed the music. In fact, we really pushed the music at that moment. And what
we are particularly proud of is the main titles. Now they sound like what Dick and I thought they did sound like, and the
direction of the sounds. And anote about digital sound effects. They have no hiss or white noise in them if they're
recorded correctly. So you actually can play them lower then analog effects and still hear them better, playing the
music even louder!

DF: How did you handle the original dialog track?

14
MT: I had the 1/4" production dialog rushed right over (from England) as quickly as possible. I was really pissed off that
it had been missing for so long and we finally found it and we were going to mix the second I came back. So I had to
get that stuff there quickly and we actually dug into them some times to salvage dialog when the original had built up
noise or bad EQ. We couldn't use it as much as we wanted because a lot of the original dialog had been interlaced
with looped lines. A lot of times we were stuck with just the mono stems of the dialog. But lead re-recording mixer
Steve Pederson did an amazing job with the dialog (and the music). We also gave the original mono stem to a place
called Novastar that did some restoration on it digitally. Then Steve had just a flat mono stem so that he could EQ as
he wished. We also had the 70mm, in case we wanted to use that every once in a while and then we had the Novastar
dialog treatment. So we had different ways of going back to the mixed dialog. Remember, those tracks had all the
effects on them; echo, anything, it was all married on there. And, like I said, with Brando it was all looped lines. We
never found the (original) loop lines.

The mix took about seven weeks. Of course it was wonderful to be able to move the music and sounds all around into
the theater. We always referenced the original dub and balanced toward music or effects if they were favored in the
original. That is, until Dick listened to a playback of a reel and gave us ideas brewing in his mind for over twenty-two
years… "LOUDER!! STRONGER!! THIS IS SUPERMAN!! Make him FLY around the room!"

DF: When you began the process, how were the documentaries and the other supplements envisioned? Obviously it
was something that you built as you went along, but what was your original plan?

MT: When we first proposed it to Warner Brothers, Dick said he'd be glad to shoot an interview. I didn't know who else
would be available. So I proposed a limited documentary, but I knew I needed help with that and Jonathan was just
extremely helpful in getting all that stuff together. He pushed to have as many people documented as we could. Now,
with documentaries, you always need something to cut to so that it's not just talking heads all the time. We knew we
had a very limited amount of material from that 1978 'making of" featurette, which was really just a fluff piece. At that
point, I didn't even have it on film. I just had an old copy on videotape that someone gave me. A lot of it was Chris
Reeve talking to camera in 1978, which we couldn't use because this was to be a new film. So there was only a limited
amount of behind the scenes footage that we could use. So it was to be a limited documentary in scope.

Jonathan had originally written a documentary that stayed away from production as much as possible because we
didn't have anything to show. We knew we could gather some stills from the studio's photographic archives, which has
really been built up in the last some odd years. But you can only cut away to stills so many times before it's just bad
filmmaking. Then I stumbled on all of that 16mm shoot in the vaults in England, which I had been trying to find. I had
actually contacted the director of that original shoot, Iain Johnstone. He didn't even know where to get a print of the
original featurette, but I found all of his negative trims. There was all this behind the scenes material that wasn't used
because the producers and, I think, the studio decided that they did not want to reveal how they made a man fly. They
wanted to keep the mystique.
 15
So when we found all this footage; that made the documentaries: Taking Flight, Making Superman and The Magic
Behind the Cape. They just come alive. And Jonathan really pushed for more and more of the principles. Gene
Hackman finally became available and really did the interview because of his fondness for Dick. John Williams was
always way off in the distance, but Jonathan was determined to have him.

It took us a while to warm up to the idea of having a host to the documentary. And then, of course, it was-Who's going
to host? Who would be appropriate? We finally came across the idea of using Marc (McClure) and I had this idea of
having him strolling around the studio. We shot all of Marc on one Saturday, including inside the scoring stage. We
were really happy to be able to shoot that on the Warner Brothers lot. It seemed to make sense. Either that or you
shoot it around Pinewood and Shepperton Studios. That's the first time that the Warner Brothers executive building
was allowed to be shot. It's behind Marc as he introduces the film; and the back of the building was used at the end.

DF: There seemed to be an eternal wait for Superman to finally be released on DVD. After the search for materials and
the restoration, what took so long?

MT: The documentaries took a long time. One reason is we kept getting more people. We finally got them and then
finished and then you go into the approval process. When you're doing a documentary, you don't have a script to really
go by. You have to build it around what people say. I'd always had this story in the back of my mind over the years
from the Ladyhawke cutting rooms, between Dick, Tom and Stuart, and always thought it was fascinating how the films
got made. It didn't take us too long to dig up our information, but once we finished it, Paul Hemstreet, who was having
twins, was gone for weeks. Dick gave me no changes really to the documentary. He loved it. But executives are
approving after the fact when you do a documentary (as opposed to a narrative film where they have the script before
you shoot) so you end up waiting at that point for everyone to approve it. Then the legal department took forever to
approve it. Jonathan and I had cleared most everything ourselves, but there were certain things they were scared of
and we had to go to the WGA to get them to sign off on the Mankiewicz part.

Coincidentally, here's the story with Mankiewicz, which everyone has gotten incorrectly. I guess it never is said clearly
on the DVD. Tom was going to get credit from the WGA with Puzo, Benton and the Newmans. He didn't want credit
with six other writers or however many. So Tom and Dick went to the WGA and came up with this other credit, creative
consultant, where he wouldn't be grouped with the rest of the writers. That's why he gets the credit that he gets. I don't
know if they were too happy with where they put the credit, which is after the writers and before the producers, but it's
not that the WGA didn't want to give him credit. They did want to give him credit. He's friends with the Newmans, still to
this day, and they don't have any problems between them.

JG: Well, the one thing as a producer that you always want to do is have a release form with you the day you do your
interview. If you don't have it then, you're up the creek. But because the whole history of this movie is so convoluted as
to who has ownership of what, there was a lot of going back and forth, especially with stuff like the "b-roll." Did Warner
own it? Did the Salkinds own it? It was finally decided that Warner owned it and thus, we were able to use it. Such a
16
mishmash of agreements and rights that had been sold as they were making the film. At what point did this stuff revert
back to Warner Brothers? It was a huge challenge to get everything cleared.

DF: Another big bonus for people is the John Williams score isolated in 5.0 sound.

MT: The music only track has been on Warners' DVDs for a while. One thing we did, which I'm proud of, we didn't use
the music stem from the dub. When you're doing a mix, at the same time you're creating a dialog 5.1 stem, an effects
5.1 stem and a music 5.1 stem. If a piece of dialog is having trouble coming through, the music mixer on the dubbing
stage will ease the music down to allow the dialog to cut through. And sometimes a director will have them swell it for
drama. So you would normally hear those changes in volume on the music only track. What we came up with was to
have Bob Garrett create level 5.0 tracks, so that the volume doesn't changes, it's just the way it was recorded. But of
course, it has the cuts because it's going along in sync with the picture. The .1 track will be filled in by any good home
theater receiver. It will automatically take anything below a certain frequency and send it to the subwoofer.

Also the stand-alone tracks are a real find. You can hear some alternates that were recorded and, I think, Williams just
wanted another crack at. The orchestration on the final main title cue is a lot more substantial. Also he scored to an
earlier cut of the film. So you can hear these longer music cues where parts were cut out to conform to the final cut of
the film and for the first time in a full surround spread.

The other features on the DVD, the trailers and the TV spots, were there in the vaults at Warner Brothers here in
Burbank. I had the original cut negatives of those things sent to a lab and had them cleaned and the splices supported.
Then they re-color timed all of them and we got new IPs and we transferred to video from them. I had to use the
original mono tracks but the tracks were literally falling apart in our hands and it was all we could do to get them up on
a machine and capture them digitally before they were gone. They literally stunk of vinegar. That's what happens to
mag tracks over years. Some of it turned a little bit to vinegar, but these old trailers and stuff like that, really no one had
any idea they would be valuable at all. Those trailers really show how far advertising skills have come since 1978.

DF: Was there ever any talk about involving the producers?

MT: Yeah, we approach Ilya (Salkind), actually a number of times. He didn't want to be interviewed. Alexander passed
away and (Pierre) Spengler is somewhere in Europe. Even without that, we tried to give a fairly unbiased accounting of
the whole thing

Of course, the screen tests were really exciting to find. All those 70's hairdo's, and the scene from Superman II, really
seemed like going back in time. I laid some music under them and it made them come alive. The dates of the tests
were right there on the slates and superimposing them gave an immediacy. We got permission from all the actresses.
They all actually gave really good performances. I'm sure the decision on Lois was hard, but Dick always has cast
toward quirky rather that beautiful, except maybe with Ladyhawke (Michelle Pfeiffer). Coincidentally, Sarah Douglas
never screen tested. She became available at the last second and so they grabbed her because she was a known
quantity and a good actress. She had this very dominatrix, sexy kind of thing going on.
 17
JG: There's a reoccurring theme from everyone we talked to who worked on the film. It was true back in 1977 and it
was true when we were making this DVD. People who worked on this movie really stepped up to the plate because of
their love for Superman. Their love for Superman was strong in 1977 and it was just as strong in 2000. I think that is
the reason that this DVD is as good as it is; everybody's fondness and love for Superman and what it means to them.
That's what we got from talking to everyone. They loved working on the film, they loved the story, they loved the
character of Superman and they were going to see it through. To be back here, twenty years later talking about it…
This is definitely my biggest production.

MT: One of the things Jonathan and I really tried to do with all the special features was not just make it for the fanatics,
but make all these things really interesting for anyone that is maybe, just getting a DVD player. I think all of it has a lot
of quality to it. As more and more people get DVD and watch some of these extra features, I think they get to be fans
of it all.

The entire Superman DVD, with all of the extras, covers one big story. It's all pieces of the same puzzle. The
commentary track, which sometimes repeats information in the documentaries, also adds a lot of new information. And
you get a real sense of how fond Tom and Dick are for each other. You see, there's part of the story, too. I think it's just
fascinating to discover how this film came about and how, despite all the problems, it still went on to be, not only
successful, but a very good film as well.
18
SUPERMAN - FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN

To say filmmaker Richard Donner and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz are Hollywood success stories is
probably an understatement. Donner began his career directing episodic television throughout the 60's and early 70's,
helming episodes of over a dozen series, including "The Fugitive," "Get Smart," "Wild, Wild West," "The Twilight Zone"
and even "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour"(!) After making his big screen debut with the little-seen Sammy Davis,
Jr., comedy Salt And Pepper in 1968, it would not be until seven years later that Donner would finally break through -
and how - with the mega-hit The Omen. It was Donner's skillful blend of fright, suspense and humor that convinced the
Salkinds that this red-hot director was the man to bring Superman into the modern era. With the rest, as they say,
being history, Donner has since gone on to direct many of the biggest critical and popular hits of the past three
decades, including the Lethal Weapon series, The Goonies, Maverick and Conspiracy Theory, as well as recently
producing another mega-hit blockbuster based on a comic book, last summer's X-Men. Donner's next film is scheduled
to be the Michael Crichton thriller Timeline, currently in production.

Tom "Mank" Mankiewicz boasts no less distinguished career as a screenwriter. Son of legendary director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the younger "Mank" first came to the attention of most moviegoers after adapting three of the
biggest James Bond films of the 70's: Diamonds Are Forever, Live And Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun.
Mankiewicz would then go on to write such screenplays as The Eagle Has Landed, The Cassandra Crossing, and the
highly entertaining Mother, Jugs & Speed. Though credited as "Creative Consultant" on Superman: The Movie,
Mankiewicz is largely considered to be the film's screenwriter, and would later work with Donner on the director's 1985
adventure Ladyhawke. Mankiewicz made his directorial debut with the 1987 remake of Dragnet, starring Tom Hanks,
and most recently contributed to the commentary on the Fox Home Video DVD release of Cleopatra, directed by his
father.

Bounding into the Wetherly Room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California to greet a roundtable
of reporters - just fashionably late enough to make a suitably grand entrance, - Donner greets us with the same voice
that greeted Mankiewicz over twenty years before, when he initially got the call to work on the Superman project. "That
booming voice of Dick Donner's that you can never mistake for anybody else!" Mankiewicz would tell us. With a
nonchalant wave of the hand, Donner's introduction is so low-key it is almost humorous ("Hi, I'm Dick Donner.") Then
the cake is cut (appropriately enough, the roundtable takes place on April 24th, Donner's birthday) and we all sit down
for an hour and a half of entertaining tales of Superman lore, production stories, strife and struggle. And though
Mankiewicz warns us upfront that Donner "Calls everyone kid," both have such boundless energy (and Mankiewicz an
impeccable memory), I start to think perhaps we should be calling them "Kids" instead!

With the production of Superman: The Movie already a Hollywood legend, just how did the whole project come
about, and how did Donner and Mankiewicz come on board? The story is long, convoluted but never less than riveting.
After the "infamous" father and son team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind bought the rights from DC Comics, they
convinced Warner to distribute their epic as a " negative pickup" (essentially meaning the Salkinds would produce and
 19
fund the picture independently.) But the duo still had to secure two of the most elusive of Hollywood
commodities...stars and funding.

Judging by Donner and Mankiewicz's mix of laughter and resignation when recollecting their memories of
making Superman, the Salkinds may have been the last of a dying breed: grand showman more than actual
producers. According to Mankiewicz, "Warner thought it might be a bad idea to do Superman, but they were going to
wind up distributing it, so they said OK." Then Alexander Salkind (or "the old man," as Mankiewicz is fond of calling
him!) went about attracting big names to help secure funding. Added Mank "The old man, all he wanted to do was get
big names attached to get the money to do this thing. So they got Mario Puzo to write a first draft, Marlon Brando to
appear, and they hired Guy Hamilton to direct it." (Rather ironic, as Hamilton directed some of the Bond films
Mankiewicz would adapt from Ian Fleming's novels, though Mank was not actually attached to the project at this early
stage)

To help drum up money, the Salkinds often resorted to pretty outlandish tactics - conjuring up some pretty no-
holds-barred publicity stunts. Mank: "I think the Salkinds were one of the early practitioners of this style of fundraising.
Which is to say, they would hire helicopters to fly over the Cannes Film Festival, saying "SUPERMAN!" But they didn't
have a script, they only had Marlon Brando for a three-week window as the father. But that was their way of raising
money - getting big names attached so they could say, 'OK, Germany will kick in this, France will kick in that!'"
Eventually, however, by the time filming got underway, Warner liked enough of what they saw and contributed to the
budget as well, thought the financial woes would continue.

With start dates already locked in place for Hackman and Brando and shooting set to start by March of 1977,
according to Donner the production still "had no cast, no Superman, no Lois." Then there was another snafu.
According to Mankiewicz, the Salkinds panned "to shoot in Italy at the time, and then suddenly the Italian Lyra shot up
in value and the British Pound collapsed, so the Salkinds said 'Let's go to England!'" But that only added more
problems. Hamilton, due to work visa issues, could only film in England for one month out of the year, so by moving
base camp, the Salkinds lost their director. So in came Donner. Mank: "Dick had just done The Omen, which was a
huge hit, so I guess that's why they got him on board."

And it was a dream come true for Donner, a comic book aficionado. As a kid, "I loved Superman, I loved
Captain Marvel, I loved them all," though he added, "I think Archie was my favorite. I always wanted to make Archie,
though I think it might be passé now. He get busted every week, I'm sure!" Donner then paused a bit here to reflect on
his younger days, perhaps a bit sadly. Following the release of Superman, "My father died quite a few years back, and
we lived on a farm, and my mother sold the farm and moved. But I got there too late, she had given away boxes and
boxes of every comic book from the black and whites onward. But I loved comics."

So with Donner in place, it was time for "The Call." Mankiewicz received an early 5:30am ring from an excited
Donner in early 1977. "'Get up! Get up! You're rewriting Superman!" he told Mankiewicz, who replied "'What the hell is
Superman!?" But despite the lack of recognition, the call would eventually change Mankiewicz's life. Donner
20
remembers telling Mankiewicz "I'm with these people called the Salkinds, and there is a woman on the way to your
house right now with the script, and I know you're a really nice guy and you're not going to fall back asleep, you're
going to wait up for her!" What greeted Mankiewicz at that door were "two of the biggest scripts I ever saw in my life. I
think the two scripts together had to total at least four or five hundred pages! I put them down in the hall and went back
up to bed." But Donner was persistent. "The phone rings again and it is Donner from Paris, and he says 'Are you
reading?' I said, 'They're too heavy, I couldn't get 'em up the stairs!'"

Mankiewicz eventually relented, despite his grueling schedule over the previous few years working on the
Bond films. And along with Donner, he also felt the script needed a change in focus and direction. Mank recalled that "I
read it - and there were some very talented writers involved - but it was done in a very consciously campy style. So I
said to Dick, 'I think I'm gonna pass.'" But Donner convinced him to come over to discuss it - with a little surprise
waiting. "I went over to his house, he answered the door - and was dressed in the Superman outfit. I just started
laughing and said, 'Okay, when do we start?'"

After screenwriters David and Leslie Newman took a crack at Mario Puzo's original story treatment - which
neither Donner nor Mankiewicz claim to have even seen - Mankiewicz sat down to "break the back" of the script and
get it into strong enough shape to shoot. Except it might have been more than the screenwriter had bargained for.
"When I got this 560-page script, I said "It's six movies!" But the Salkinds had other ideas; namely, two movies to be
filmed back to back...

Donner explained the story behind the rumors and the infamous "Salkind Clause" that is now standard issue in
SAG contracts. The story actually dates back to a prior Salkind production, The Three Musketeers, produced in 1973,
and directed by Richard Lester (who went on to co-direct Superman II and all of Superman III...but more on that later.)
According to Donner "There is now a clause in the SAG contract called the "Salkind Clause," because they did Three
Musketeers and they only paid the actors for one movie, but obviously shot a script that was so fat and so long, they
had enough footage for two movies! And they went to release the second movie without paying the actors." Of course,
eventually, the Salkinds were eventually sued, and forced to pay the actors.

To prevent the same abuse on the Superman project, the Salkinds (and any other filmmakers producing more
than one film back-to-back) had to "declare" the number of movies they intended to make, and despite the
considerable heft of that 560-page screenplay sitting on Mankiewicz's lap, the Salkinds declared only two. Though the
Newmans had already rewritten the script, Mankiewicz claims there was no bad blood or jealously between any of the
writers involved. "When I came onboard, I called the David (Newman) and I said 'Do you mind if I go on this picture?'
and he said 'No, please, we left such a mess!'" So with no writer issues, how to explain Mankiewicz's ultimate
"Creative Consultant" credit?

One of the most oft-discussed aspects of the whole Superman production is just what material was and wasn't
in Mankewicz's ultimate draft of the screenplay, and why Mankiewicz's credit on the film ultimately reads "Creative
Consultant" (as opposed to the typical "Written By.") According to Mank, it was only after he and Donner went "through
 21
hell and back" during production that he decided to go for a consultant credit. "I could have gotten a writing credit on
the picture, but I really wanted a writing credit that more accurately reflected what I'd done throughout the length of the
picture." This eventually led to a jury hearing with the WGA (Writer's Guild of America), who eventually awarded him
the credit, a first in American cinema.

But not without controversy. DONNER: "They didn't want to give it (the credit) to us, and no one has ever
gotten it since. But it was going on there, no matter what." Though, he added, "It really should have been 'Written by
Tom Mankiewicz.'" But the controversial choice of Mankiewicz's was not without sacrifices. "I was told at the time by
the WGA that was I was sacrificing all my residuals by taking the Creative Consultant credit. And the WGA, where I am
dearly loved today, " he added with a sarcastic laugh, "hated me for inventing that credit because since then a lot of
people tried to use it!"

So with Donner and Mankiewicz now fully on board, the edict was to fashion two movies out of this big, raw
lump, Mankiewicz and Donner sat down to figure out how to retool Superman for the 70's, but retain the integrity of the
character and the story. Luckily for fans, Donner's love for the comics he read as a kid meshed with Mankiewicz's
desire to avoid a campy tone. Mankiewicz: "Everybody has their own concept of Superman, and thank god Dick and I
agreed on how we wanted to do it." But the filmmakers were not unaware of the pitfalls. Mank remembers telling
Donner "Well, if we're wrong, it is like flying across the Pacific and missing Hawaii...you just sink. But this is how we
see it. Humor so you could laugh with the characters, not at the characters."

In fact, Mankiewicz likens the task to his work on the James Bond films. "I've found whether it is James Bond
or Superman, or any iconoclastic character, if you write self-conscious humor - and I think the tendency for a writer is
to show everybody that you, the writer, are smarter than the material - it will be too self conscious. Stuff like 'Superman
slips on a banana peel' or whatever. And I think that is the wrong way to go. I think Bond worked best when you really
were scared that something was going to happen to him, when there was real suspense and it wasn't just camp."

So the pair decided to take Superman as a story in a somewhat surprising direction: turning it into, ultimately,
a love story between Superman and Lois Lane (with, of course a little adventure along the way.) Explained
Mankiewicz, "We decided to write three movies. The first part is up in Krypton, and the writing is very stilted, and there
is kind of a religious allegory there that I kind of wanted, with God sending his son to Earth to save mankind. Then you
hit young Clark growing up in Smallville, and that is all Andrew Wyeth-esque, and the dialogue is written very "Ma and
Pa." Then, all of a sudden, he hits Metropolis, and BANG! The colors are bright, people talk very fast, and suddenly
you're there."

This carried over to the intended look of the film. Donner intended it to be somewhat obvious "It was very
consciously written, and shot, three ways. On Krypton there is a fog filter that is used a lot. In Canada, where we shot
all the wheat fields for the Smallville scenes, it is photographed like an Andrew Wyeth painting. Then when we get to
Metropolis, there's the reds, the blues, and its bold." But even with a script finally done and the approach Donner
would take to shoot the picture solidified (or pictures, since at that point Donner was still expecting to complete both
22
Superman and Superman II), the trials and tribulations were just beginning. The focus now shifted to casting, but you
can't make audiences believe a many can fly with...no Superman. Enter Christopher Reeve.

Donner's first impression of Reeve were enthusiastic, if a bit cautious. "When I met Chris, I was seeing a
bunch of other actors that day, and he came up to the hotel. He had kind of honey blonde hair, very skinny. He had
this massive sweater on, with like four sweaters underneath it. He's sitting in my hotel room sweating like a pig. He
apologized for being so uncomfortable, and starting taking off the sweaters, and he just made me laugh. I just thought
this was the perfect kid." Just to be sure, Donner removed the horn-rimmed glasses he wore at the time, and "I put
them on Chris. And he laughed, and I asked 'Could you bulk up?' because honestly, Superman is Superman! And he
replied 'I was a jock. I can do this.'"

Sure enough, and despite some hesitation on the part of the producers, the "kid was perfect," and they few
Reeve over to England to screen test for casting director Lynn Stalmaster, who also agreed Reeve was right for the
part. As Donner recollected, a little help was needed for the transformation "We used black shoe polish to darken his
hair, and he was so skinny, his cheeks were drawn, big balls of sweat under his arms..." Mankiewicz cuts in to add
"We just thought 'maxi pads!' But we he came over, he did such a charming test, then Dick called Terry Semel and
Bob Daly (the heads of Warner) and said "You gotta see this test." And thank god, they loved it!"

To help Reeve bulk up, they assigned him an Olympic trainer (Darth Vader himself, David Prowse!) and as
production progressed, "You could see the difference." Donner remembers. "The costume started to blossom. At one
point, we were even thinking of putting plastics under the costume that we could inflate, but in the end we didn't need
to. He literally grew into Superman."

So with their new Superman in place, along with Brando, Hackman and then virtual-unknown Margot Kidder
cast as Lois Lane, and it was time to begin production. But with the pressure of Brando and Hackman's ironclad "start
dates" in place and unmovable, the tension mounted. Especially since the Salkinds had underestimated the budget
that would be required (at that time around $17 million.) Tempers flared...

Recalls Mankiewicz, shaking his head, "There were times in the beginning, when nobody believed in it.
Everyone thought that this was just going to be a disaster." And industry pundits were already lying in wait to predict
the picture a failure before it even began shooting. Donner remembered the bad buzz. "They'd say, 'Oh, they got
Brando and Hackman, they're overpaying, this is gonna be a joke.'" Yet, perhaps surprisingly, Donner didn't lose his
cool. "We were younger then, and there wasn't seventeen assistant executives in Armani suits at Warner telling us
what to do, they just let us do the picture." But there were still tense moments according to Mankiewicz. "At one point,
when we couldn't find a Superman, and a new Lois was being tested every Saturday, we got so desperate we tested
the producer's wife's dentist! Actually, we flew him over to London...and he wasn't bad!"

But the chemistry between Reeve and Kidder was crucial to the ultimate success of the film. Said Mankiewicz,
"For me, there was a spine to this movie, and it was a love story between two young kids (Superman and Lois Lane.)
 23
And I think some of the best things about the picture are because of the very touching relationship between Chris and
Margot."

A key scene was the first encounter on the terrace. For Mank, "It is really just two kids talking to each other.
They're sexually attracted to each other, they're embarrassed but they don't want to say it." The original version of the
scene was only two pages long and played for laughs, but Mankiewicz expanded it. "I changed it to about five or six
pages, and it became the test scene for all the screen tests for Lois. And the obvious thing that I added was that he
takes her flying, which would be every woman's fantasy - to fly with Superman." But Donner is quick to give the other
elements of the picture credit as well. "Gene (Hackman) is very funny, and Ned (Beatty) is very funny." Yet, he agrees
with Mankiewicz that it still is essentially a love story. "You could write those comedic lines, you can get all the
adventure situations, but that is the glue that holds the picture together."

But even with the perfect casting of Reeve as Superman and Kidder as Lane, and a unanimous, positive vibe
from fellow cast and crew, how do you literally make a man fly onscreen? Back in the late 70's, CGI as such didn't
exist, and the technology needed to pull off the illusion didn't really exist. But Donner remained an optimist. "I just
assumed he (Superman) was gonna fly. There were four or five or six different ways that they made him fly. But no
one (up until that point) had made anyone fly successfully in a movie."

The technical process was a long one. "We didn't know until about a year into the production" if it was going to
work, Donner said. "We tried everything. The wires we knew we could work, but it was limited, because how much can
you do on a wire? But we were trying to get him (Superman) in front of a moving background with the rear projection
process. But the projector and the camera unit weighed about a ton, so therefore there was no mobility or flexibility
(with the system.) You couldn't put a zoom lens on it, at least to make him seem like he was smaller and then coming
towards the camera and getting bigger. You couldn't do any of that."

But, in the end they still managed to succeed, but not without inventing new technology. "It was just like
inventing the wheel in the beginning," Donner said, and he and Mankiewicz were quick to give due credit to the tireless
production crew behind the film who made the Man Of Steel fly high. "It really was the most amazing group of effects
people who were on the film." In another example of some of the problems Donner encountered with the Salkinds, the
director wanted to help pay for the development of a very light and compact rear projection system that would allow the
filmmakers to fully achieve the illusion of flight. (In fact, this new system would weigh in at only a mere 55 pounds.) To
develop it, $25,000 was needed, so Donner went to the Salkinds, who said "'No, we're not spending the money.' I said,
'$25,000 to get a guy in to make Superman fly, and you're putting millions into this production!' But , nope, they
wouldn't do it." But Donner eventually found a way. "So I went to Warner, and a wonderful executive named Charlie
Greenlaw who was in charge of production, and he said 'Go for it.'" Thus, Donner got his improved projection system.

But even after many of the initial hurdles with the flying "rig" were solved, getting it all to work took longer than
anyone anticipated. Donner also enticed famed black and white cameraman Dennis Koop (who unfortunately died
shortly after making the film) to come on board"for what we thought would be just a month" and help develop the
24
projection flying scenes. But, laughed Donner, "A year and a half later, Dennis was still on the project, and he would
leave, because it was such a challenge! We'd stay up nights tearing up this front projection material, these little glass
beads that you get in your eyes. Oh, it was terrible!"

And, after so much trial and error, the first "dailies" (viewings of a previous day's shooting) of Reeve actually
taking flight were a moving one for cast and crew. Remembered Donner "It sounds silly, but one day, we were in
dailies, and I had three units. The flying unit, the main unit - and the main unit might had three or four units, because
we might have been in the Fortress Of Solitude lighting one thing, while on another stage lighting Smallville - so
sometimes I would have seven units shooting at the same time." Amid all this near-chaos, Superman finally took flight.
"On this day during dailies, we really thought we had something. We were a bunch of grown men, and we sat there at
dailies and it was Chris flying in front of a hotel. And he flew. And it was nearly over a year that this thing worked, and
we just started crying. We had finally made him fly!"

Recalled Mank: "It was amazing. I remember one night, Chris (Reeve) was hanging by a wire, and it was in
New York. It was the sequence were it was Superman's first night in Metropolis. And one of the things he had to do
was pull a cat out of a tree and gave it to a little girl." Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. According to Donner,
"They had Chris on this wire, swinging him towards the tree, and of course it is a stuffed cat, and he kept crashing and
cracking into branches, and it just wasn't working. And people from the surround buildings were yelling "Get that cat,
Superman! You can get 'em!" Donner recalled another of those late New York nights, "I remember there was a traffic
helicopter that even broadcast "Ladies and gentleman, I'm not drunk, but there is a guy in a big blue suit with an "S" on
his chest, and he's about 8 feet up in the air and he's flying on over the west side!" But success would come
eventually. "It was a difficult time, but by the end, he got it (the hang of flying) pretty well. The effect still works."

With production eventually dragging on for more than a year, and despite the ultimate success of the film both
artistically and eventually commercially, Donner and Mankiewicz made sure to underscore the fact that it was still a
grueling, emotionally draining experience. DONNER: "It was really a bitch making Superman, it was really tough, and
the people that were producing it were no help and really counterproductive, and we had to take them on, so it was
double the work."

Mank credits Donner with pulling it all together. "I've always said, if Dick hadn't directed the film, five people
would have had to." The obstacles almost read like a catalog of Murphy's Law and Hollywood catastrophe. Continued
Mank, "You have Brando ready to shoot, you haven't cast the guy (Superman), you don't know how he is going to fly,
and John Barry - a brilliant production designer who did Star Wars (and unfortunately died right after the end of
production) - he was trying to build sets as quickly as he could. I was trying to go through a hundred pages plus of
script trying to rewrite and stay ahead of where we were going to be in terms of the production, and they never even
showed Dick a budget!"

The Salkinds had raised $17 million to fund both movies, but there was soon a little problem. Mank: "The
Salkinds had promised the investors that they were going to make both films for like $17 million, but they already used
 25
up $10 million and we hadn't even starting shooting yet!" And the experience wasn't easy on Donner, and it didn't help
that the working relationship with the Salkinds was deteriorating. Mank: "I remember Dick yelling into the phone 'Why
don't you schedule the rest of the picture for two days, then I'll be a year over schedule!' It was just crazy." Added
Donner "I remember them (the Salkinds) always telling me 'You're over budget!' And I just thought 'Uhhhh, what
budget? Never ever saw the budgets!'"

But it wasn't always dire. The pair remembered a number of funny, fond memories of some of the more
comical moments during the production. Donner once asked "What does the 'S' (the crest on Superman's chest) stand
for?" And Mankiewicz answered"Superman," but that wasn't plausible for Donner. "But he comes from Krypton - he
wouldn't be a superman on Krypton - so why does he have an S?" So they came up with an idea that would work.
Mankiewicz:"On Krypton, every had a letter, a designation. The family crest is an 'S.'" Though it was tough to convince
Brando. Mank recalled "Brando wasn't sure about wearing the 'S.'" But then Donner made it even tougher for the
legendary actor, asking him to adopt Superman's "spit curl" hairdo, very unhip even back in 1978. "Dick wanted him to
wear a 'spit curl' like Superman does, and I remember Marlon saying 'No, stop right there. There will be no spit curl!' Of
course, by the time we got ready to shoot, he said 'Oh, what the hell, give me a split curl!'"

But fun times aside, the Salkind's financial problems would eventually have an effect on the shape and story of
the film itself. And the rushed development process required Mankiewicz to work faster than perhaps he would have
liked. "I would have loved to push back three months so I could rewrite these scripts, instead of 'Here's 560 pages, can
you cut out 360 and rewrite the other 200 so we have two movies?'" But the production realities prevented it. "We had
start dates, Brando and Hackman. Not stop dates, start dates. And if Brando or Hackman arrives on that date, you
better be ready!" Mankiewicz laughed.

As the production continued, the Salkinds realized the budget was almost bankrupt, so it was decided to first
finish Superman I and release it while still continuing on with Superman II. At this point, Donner was still on board, and
he and Mank turned all their attention to completing the first film, eventually changing the order of events in the script
around. With Donner shooting two films back to back, essentially there needed to be two films that could stand on their
own. But Mankiewicz revealed that originally Superman I ended as "a cliffhanger." "Dick said to me that Superman
turning the world backwards to save Lois - which was originally the end of number 2 - that that is the most spectacular
thing, so we better make it the end of number 1. Because there may not be a number 2!" So Mankiewicz rewrote it and
put it at the end of the first film. But, trivia fans take note, originally the death of Lois was to be the climax of Part 2,
with the "Phantom Zone" trio eventually burst from their imprisonment at the end of part 1.

Eventually, Superman: The Movie did complete production and post-production got underway, but the troubles
continued. Donner sighed "I came back to have a screening with a workprint, and Warner had set up three previews,
and I was waiting for the film to arrive." But those previews would ultimately not happen. Warner contacted Donner,
explaining that the Salkinds had refused to allow the film to come to California. "They were saying that there was a
discrepancy on the delivery of the film - the date that we were supposed to finish shooting. And for every day over, it
26
was costing the Salkinds something like a million dollars. I didn't know what the deal was, so I can't be quoted for sure,
but a lot of heads hung on that one." Eventually, the workprint was never allowed out of England, and Donner didn't
have a chance to preview the picture and fine-cut the film (once again working with Stuart Baird, his editor on The
Omen.)

Eventually finishing cutting the picture in England, Donner and Baird came back to America with a finished
print, which ran at the Kennedy center for the first time - with an audience. DONNER: "I looked at it, and Stuart and I
had taken a lot of things out that we just felt were too long, but we didn't really know for sure. So, those things were cut
out, and we saw it with an audience the first time. I don't remember what my reaction was at the time, maybe I had
wanted to put some things back in, but in any case, I never had a preview."

But the post-production period had its plusses. For Donner, it was a chance to work for the first time with
composer John Williams, who contributed a classic score that even those who are not fans of the film have to admit is
perfect. But surprisingly, Donner wasn't sure at first Williams was his man. "When I had done The Omen, it was a toss-
up between John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. I had gone too long on The Omen and I lost John, but I loved them
both." Goldsmith ended up doing the score for The Omen - and won an Academy Award for it - so when the time came
to do Superman, Donner felt a sense of loyalty to him, and subsequently a very long bout of "flip-flopping" ensued...

"When I did Superman, I had a sense of loyalty - since Jerry had won the Oscar for The Omen and we were
friends - and I wanted Jerry to do it. But then we just went too long, and this time I lost Jerry and John came on. But
then we went too long again, and I lost John, and Jerry came back. Eventually, the way it worked out was, at that very
last minute I lost Jerry again, and John came back again! So it was this incredible back and forth." Of course, you
could argue either choice would be none too shabby, and Donner agreed. "They are both geniuses, and I knew both
had an incredible sense for the project, So for me, the choice was perfect for The Omen and perfect for Superman."
Donner loved Williams's work so much, "I used to go home and blast the music - so loud the cops would have to come
to my door - and it was brilliant, just brilliant!"

Still, up until the very last moment, the problems continuted. Most of the stories that have grown up over the
years around the Salkinds seem mild compared to Donner and Mankiewicz's descriptions. (It makes one wonder what
the younger Salkind is doing these days...infomercials?) Donner remembered, shaking his head, "They even had
different passports from Costa Rica," and Mank continued "The old man was the cultural attache from Switzerland to
Costa Rica so he couldn't get arrested! And they had never, ever been to Costa Rica in their lives!" Though both are
quick to praise Warner for their great support throughout the grueling experience, it was their friendship that ultimately
got them through. Donner movingly praised Mankiewicz. "Tom has the greatest sense of humor in the world and is
obviously a great writer. So we laughed. And we laughed making that picture, otherwise you'd cry and never finish it."

When Superman: The Movie finally premiered at Christmas of 1978, it was a huge hit - and up until that time,
the biggest hit in Warner's history. But Superman II still needed to be finished, and the million dollar question remains:
just why was Donner eventually fired? Actually, scratch that; make it "The $4 Million Dollar Question."
 27
Mankiewicz explained that it was the animosity between the producers and Donner, as well as some past
debts getting in the way, that caused the rift that eventually resulted in Donner's departure. Mank laughed. 'Dick and I
used to call the movie 'Close Encounters Of The Sal-Kinds.' Richard Lester, who had directed the Three Musketeers
and The Four Musketeers figured that - because those two movies were very successful - his piece of the profits the
Salkinds owed him was about $4 million dollars." So, what did he do? Well, sue, of course! And it went to court, and he
won. "Except, " chuckled Mankiewicz, "he won against a Bohemian company that in turn was part of a Panamanian
holding company, and the company he won against was bankrupt!"

But kidding aside, the rift between Donner and the Salkinds would eventually proved detrimental to the quality
Superman II, which in the end only harms audiences. Said Mankiewicz, "Dick and the Salkinds were so at odds with
each other, that at one point they were even talking about putting me on as producer. Dick went to Salkind's people,
and the Old Man said 'But if we do this, you will agree with Mr. Donner everyday?' And I said 'Yes, I will!', and he said
'Well, then, we can't do that!'"

But, ultimately, the relationship deteriorated completely and Donner was fired before returning to finish
Superman II. According to Mankiewicz, it was the older Salkind who went to Richard Lester and offered him the
job...and solved the lawsuit problem as well. Mank: "I think they always wanted to fire Dick, especially if the movie was
a hit, because Dick had already shot 60 percent or 70 percent of Superman II." So the Salkinds told Lester "If you
come on the picture we will pay you the money we owe you. That was the deal." Just to underscore the ego involved,
Mank added that he felt the Salkinds would fire Donner if the first movie was a hit to "punish" him, or equally as bad,
force him to complete Superman II if the first film had been a flop. "I always thought, if the first picture was a hit, they're
going to fire Dick and let Lester finish Superman II for the $4 million they owe him, and if it is a flop, make Dick finish it.
Really bad."

Added Mank: "All of Gene hackman's stuff was shot while Hackman was there." Yet ironically, when
Superman II did finally hit theater screens in 1980 (1981 in the United States) - and bore the imprint "Directed by
Richard Lester," not Richard Donner - not everyone realized Donner had even shot any of Superman II. Mank
remembered that "When Superman II came out, and a critic in New York magazine, David Denby said something like
'Well, you can tell that now that Richard Lester has taken over, the sophistication with which Hackman is handled in II
is obvious." But, since Hackman refused to return to the production after Donner was fired, Lester Richard never shot a
foot of film with Gene Hackman. So Mankiewicz sent a letter to Denby. "I just want you to know for the record that
Gene Hackman never shot with Richard Lester," Mankiewicz laughed. "Of course, they never printed the letter!"

While the Donner-less Superman II still achieved worldwide box office success, the ensuing sequels got
progressively worse, and it is fair to say the original remains the best installment. Not that Donner or Mankiewicz didn't
at one point hope for otherwise. Said DONNER: "We used to talk about it, and I assumed after the first film we'd just
keep going on and making them. Tom and I kinda had the next three or four movies mapped out. I'd direct one, then
28
Tom would direct one, then I'd direct one, and we were gonna keep it going for a few years." But after the Salkinds
again tapped Lester to helm the ill-fated, largely comedic Superman III, Donner felt that "there was just no going back."

Mankiewicz has his own theory as to why the third and fourth installments failed to fly (and let's not even
mention Supergirl.) "The thing that is wrong with III was that it was a Richard Pryor movie. It would be like making a
James Bond movie and putting all your money into the villain. If you want James Bond to last - and it has lasted for 40
years - James Bond is the important person, and it is always a James Bond film. Superman has to be Superman. It's
Superman's movie."

Though the stories have changed in interviews past, according to Mankiewicz and Donner, Warner did indeed
approach the pair about resuscitating the ailing "franchise" and returning to shepherd what would eventually become
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. Mankiewicz: "After Superman III, Terry Semel and Bob Daly (then heads of
Warner) asked Dick and I to do the next one, to get it back on track." Initially, the idea was tempting. "Both of us
rubbed our hands together because they said 'Well give you anything, just name your price and get it back on track.'"
While they seriously mulled the offer, ultimately they decided against it. "We sat down at Dick's house, and realized it
was just too close to the first two. We had Superman turn into a human being, we had him beaten up, we used the
Kryptonite on him, we had Lex Luthor, he turned the world back in time, he tasted pain, Lois almost died... we really
did it all already. So, to do it again, it would just have been for the money."

In the intervening years, both Donner and Mankiewicz would could continue their successful careers, and now
over twenty years since Superman: the Movie first debuted on theater screens, it is now returning fresh and reborn on
DVD. But why now? For Donner, it is simple economics. "Somebody at Warner got wise and said 'Hey, we're sitting on
this thing, let's do it.'" But lest he sound cynical, Donner is a big DVD fan and excited to see his Superman restored (as
well as many of his other films, such as the recent Omen and upcoming Goonies special editions.) As far as the format
goes, "I love it - better than VHS! It is much more honest - it's purer, cleaner, better resolution. And it really looks like it
is a movie, or as close to a movie as home video has come. "

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the new, fully restored and remastered Superman debuting on DVD
is the addition of some additional footage not shown in the original theatrical cut of the film. Not having been able to
preview and fine-cut the picture back in 1978, Donner was excited to revisit the project. "When you make a movie, it is
so subjective, so personal. You shoot a lot of material, and you know you are going to start honing it down it, and
tightening, tightening, tightening. And it is a bitch to do, because you know you are going to lose a lot of the things you
love."

For Donner, the preview process - which is often much-loathed by some filmmakers - is an integral part of
editing an "audience picture." "90% of editing comes from an audience reaction. There are some pictures I didn't do
that on, because it was my picture and I made it for me, but a picture like Superman is entertainment for the people.
So, two or three previews would have told me where it worked, and where it didn't work,."
 29
For the DVD, the director got to reinstate a few things he feels he may have added back had he had a chance
to preview the picture in 1978. "I just put the stuff back in that I figured 'Why not show it to an audience now, they're
captive, they're paying for this DVD. And they can speed through it if they don't like it!'" The director says it was an
enjoyable process, especially expanding the depth of the characters. "All the stuff with Ned Beatty and Gene
Hackman, and those crazy things underground - whatever they were. It was great fun."

One of the most oft-asked questions by fans, especially given the myriad cuts of the film that have appeared
on other home video versions and television airings, is just how much extra footage there was, and why didn't Donner
put more back in, or at least add additional deleted scenes to the DVD as a supplement? Obviously displeased with
the "television cuts," Donner was never happy that they even aired. "We were close to a lawsuit on that. I had final cut,
and you can't just put footage back into a picture." But enter the Salkinds again, and that ever-present motive, profit.
"What I didn't know was that in those days you were paid (for television rights) by the length of the movie. And the
Salkinds, when it went on television with an extra half hour, they got paid more." Then he added, laughing, "I think they
were going to put the slates back in!" But Donner remained unhappy. "It went on the air before I even knew about it. I
went berserk, but there is nothing I could or can do about it, then or now."

Still, leaving scenes on the cutting room floor is a painful process for the filmmaker. DONNER: "You think
everything you shoot is going to be in the picture - it is very difficult to take a scene out of a movie, especially if you
love it. Sometimes, it is just time, and you notice you are killing an audience and you know you gotta take something
out. And that's a bitch. You work two weeks on it, or you labor away for a year on a project. And a scene is so pivotal, it
means so much to you, and but you have to let it go." And revisiting the film was a rewarding experience for the pair,
especially recording the audio commentary. Said Mankiewicz: "When we watched the film together, we remembered
more of the fun, and the good times we had, more than the anguish and the pain."

But if they were to do the film today, how would they do it, or could it even be done in today's modern, cynical
era? Donner hesitated before answering, the admitted it would require a slightly different approach. "To be honest, I'm
not sure how I'd do it today. First, I'd call Mank, then I'd get some young kid to help push us. But, somewhere today
there is a meld between tradition and the new millennium, the future. And I would find that." Added Mank, "You would
have to treat it intelligently, maybe slightly ironically at times, and you would really have to walk a very thin line. But I
think if you didn't, there would be no sense in making it."

With so much talk over the past few years of resurrecting Superman once again on the big screen (industry
reports indicated that at one time director Tim Burton was attached to the project, with Nicholas Cage set to star) did
anyone approach Donner? Apparently not. "You know, they didn't come to me when they (Warner) wanted to redo
Superman." But perhaps the reason a new Superman project hasn't gotten off the ground is because it has already
been done, and done right? DONNER: "They've done four or five screenplays, and they still haven't beaten it.
Someday said to me that the producer doesn't want to see him in his costume. I certainly wouldn't have fit in with that
producer!"
30
So, with Superman reborn, so to speak, on DVD, what is next for the pair? Mankiewicz is continuing to write,
while Donner - in addition to producing a more adult, serious comic book adaptation of the hit Constantine - has lined
up Michael Crichton's Timelime as his next project.

But one area Donner is excited to explore is digital filmmaking. The director revealed that he had just shot his
first test footage with a new 24 frames per second digital camera, and was "wowed" by the results. But, with so much
of Superman's success due to plain old fashioned "traditional" effects, I had to ask, does he have any worries about
this new "digital age?" Perhaps not to surprisingly for a director with such a long and varied career, his answer is no.
"You know, when color came in, they said 'It'll destroy motion pictures!' And in the beginning, it is just too much for too
many and few think it out properly, but it will all work out. It's like when the zoom first came out, everybody started
zooming, and you start to overplay with it." But the director is excited about the possibilities. "I can't get over it! You can
do anything with it - adjust the contrast, add a bit of blue to someone's eyes - all digitally."

But whatever is to come, even after four decades of filmmaking, Donner will be a part of it. "It is a new world.
The future, whatever it holds, I just hope I'm on the edge of it!"
 31
IGNFF: What steered you into Superman, which is practically a 180 from The Omen?

DONNER: Well, maybe in a strange way, I was defending it. I was tweaked by the idea of Superman immediately, but
then when I realized it was going to be produced by some Hungarians whose office was in Costa Rica and they had
never been there in their life, and it was going to be directed by and Englishman in Italy – I thought, “What the f*** are
they doing to Superman?” It’s apple pie and ice cream and Americana. It’s Norman Rockwell. It’s “Don’t Tread On Me.”
In a strange way, I felt that I’ve got to do this. The moment I got into it – read it – I felt, “Oh man, what a challenge this
is going to be.” I knew I was up to the challenge, having done The Omen and realized what you could do in motion
pictures by surrounding yourself with geniuses. I readily accepted the challenge.

IGNFF: What are the challenges you were presented with? How drastically different was the script you were initially
presented with?

DONNER: Phenomenal. I mean, it was ridiculous. The script I read was like 400 pages that were ridiculous. They had
Superman flying down looking for Lex Luthor, but he stops Telly Savalas on the street, who says, “Who loves ya baby.”
It was just sickening. It had no approach, no sense of reality, no sense of its own verisimilitude – its own life in the
reality of what Krypton was, and what Smallville was, and what the transition to Metropolis was going to be. They
prepared it for a year, and they had the guy flying on a flat board with 4 wires. What were the challenges? Endless. I
was going to beat the script, I was going to cast it, I was going to do all that, but the biggest challenge was – how was I
going to make a man fly? How was I going to convince the public that an actor could fly? Everything else, in those
days, was done either with miniatures, or green/blue screen, or rotoscope – it was the state of the art, but it was totally
naïve in comparison to what you can do today. When I look at the things we did, I’m in awe of some of it, because it’s
damn near as good as you could do today.

IGNFF: I think some of it’s even better than what can be created today, now that people are over-relying on digital
effects that oft-times still look cartoony…

DONNER: I think you’re probably right. I think what some people are doing with digital effects is starting to get silly. It’s
overused, but we always do that. I remember when the zoom lens came in, and every director couldn’t zoom enough –
zoom in, zoom out, zoom up, zoom down. Then when the diaprars came in, and you could hold something in focus
and do a macro on that and drop back, everybody did it. It was experimentation. But I think what CGI will boil down to
is that it will be just validating something and not getting carried away with “what can I do that nobody’s done before”.
So, those were basically the Superman problems.

IGNFF: You mentioned that the Salkinds already had a director attached to the project…

DONNER: It was Guy Hamilton. He was on it for over a year. They had experimented for over a year, and when they
showed me their tests of everything they had done, I just said, “Fellas, it’s a throwout. We’ve got to start from scratch.”

IGNFF: And what was their response to that?

32
DONNER: Well, their responses were always very negative. What actually happened is that we convinced ourselves
that we could make the movie without them. Warner Bros. got involved, and I really became responsible to Warner
Bros. and not to the Salkinds. And Warner Bros. wanted to make the picture, so they supported me and backed me,
and we went ahead and did everything we wanted to do right.

IGNFF: What were the notes you brought to re-envisioning the script?

DONNER: Oh, that’s endless. As I said earlier, I wanted a sense of reality in each of the three phases of the movie.
Krypton had to have its reality. Smallville had to have its own. And then Metropolis. We threw out anything that was
supercilious or in any way sends up the characters, because the characters are all bigger than life to start with. Lex
Luthor is bigger than life. If you compounded that bigger-than-life, there’d be no threat. He wouldn’t be a worthy villain.
So that is what (Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz) had to deal with. We spent many a day and many a night – I
brought him over to England with me, and I kept him there as long as I could. Half the time we were improvising and
trying to keep it alive – and if I had Tom there, it made everything easier.

IGNFF: There’s a concept that somebody brought up to me the other day in regards to the script, and I wanted to ask
you if this was a conscious effort in your mind during the development process – in that Superman plays very much
like an immigrant story.

DONNER: Well, I don’t call it an immigrant story. I call it “fish out of water”. I had life threats, because people accused
me of approaching Brando as God and his son was Jesus. I got life-threats.

IGNFF: I can’t imagine you getting threats…

DONNER: I couldn’t either, but we had Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the LAPD looking in to them. I literally had people
saying that my blood would run in the streets for doing that. But it’s just a good “fish out of water” plot.

IGNFF: Where was most of the pre-production process done? Was it done in the States or in England?

DONNER: Everything was done in England. The minute we went over there, it was just flat-out. What we had to do
was design a film, have a concept, and then forget the concept and then just do everything that had to do with Brando,
because he had been given a start date. The Salkinds, believe it or not, gave commitments to actors – both Brando
and Hackman, for the money they paid them – without having a director on board or a screenplay or anything else. It
was a nightmare. It was totally a nightmare.

IGNFF: So Brando and Hackman were pre-signed before you even came on board…

DONNER: Exactly.

IGNFF: What was the difficulty in finding your Superman?

DONNER: Again, the producers wanted to have Redford or Newman – they were going after stars…

IGNFF: So, a complete lack of understanding of the character…

 33
DONNER: Exactly. Plus the fact that I had a feeling, as I said earlier, I had to physically convince the audience that he
could fly but, just as important, I had to convince the audience that that man who was playing that role could fly. And I
could not believe that Redford or Newman or any of those well-known actors in that role, in blue leotards and a red
cape, flying.

IGNFF: I’m sure, at that time, that Newman and Redford would have agreed with you…

DONNER: I’m sure they did. Before I got there, it had gone to everybody. I wanted an unknown. We put a search out,
and one day in New York, a skinny, kind of blondish/light brown haired kid came in, who I just thought had something
about him that stood out. I was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and I gave them to him to put on. I was totally intrigued
with the fact that he could play Superman. That was Christopher Reeve. I always say that he flew into my hotel room. I
was convinced that it was him. They wanted a screen test, and I was going to screen test him, so I brought to London
and screen-tested him with Jack Palance’s daughter Holly, who I had used in The Omen. He was as skinny as the day
was long, and I had to put black shoe-polish in his hair to make it look dark, and the costume was baggy and he was
sweating like a kid in a sauna with black circles under his arms. In regards to the physicality – he told me that he had
been a jock and that he could build up again – because I was convinced that he could do it as an actor, and he
convinced me that he could build up again… And he did, in a miraculously short time. We had an Olympic trainer with
him who fed him all kinds of special protein diets and had him working out pretty hard and – lo and behold – one day I
walked in and there was Superman. I knew he could do it.

IGNFF: How easily did the casting of Margot Kidder come along?

DONNER: Well, that was a problem. We saw every available actress who was right for the role – did a lot of screen
tests – and I always say that Margot Kidder tripped into my room one day. She’s a calamity… If there’s anything to
knock into, fall over, spill on – Margot will find it. That was her when she walked in. She was cute as a bubble. I had
seen her in a series called Nichols, and I thought she was a wonderful actress, and she was this wonderful wide-eyed
doe in a spotlight of a car. She convinced me instantly. I took her to England – Chris was already onboard – and I did a
screen test with them, and it was a classic. She was just magical, so everybody else went bye-bye.

IGNFF: Were there any concerns with the pre-cast Brando and Hackman?

DONNER: It was just the thrill of a lifetime. The fact that I had Marlon Brando and was going to be able to work with
him was extraordinary, and with Hackman – they were two of my heroes.

IGNFF: I have to admit, you were able to get one of the most coherent Brando performances onscreen that I’ve ever
seen.

DONNER: Well, thank you. Thank you. The only challenge that he presented was that if he could talk you out of
working for the day, he would. He’s a delight.

IGNFF: And Hackman as the perfect Lex Luthor…

34
DONNER: Gene’s great. There’s some great stories about how I got Brando and Hackman to work for me.

IGNFF: Coaxing a performance?

DONNER: It wasn’t coaxing a performance… It’s developing a relationship with actors that makes it work. It started
with Gene Hackman. I met him at a publicist’s office when I first got hired to do the job. I was talking to his publicist,
and he said Gene was there and I should meet him, so I did. He was nice. Not overly anxious to do the movie, the
money looked good, by maybe he had a second thought… I don’t know. So we were talking, and he had mustache. I
was just growing a mustache. So I said, “You know, Gene, one thing that’s really essential in this is that Lex Luthor is
bald. I think it would be a pain in the ass to have to wear a skullcap – do you want to just shave your head?” And he
said, “No skullcaps, and I’m not shaving my head.” I said, “Oh. Well, Lex Luthor’s bald – everyone knows he’s bald.”
And he said, “Nope. I’m not doing it. Next.” “At least you’ll take the mustache off, won’t you?” He said, “The mustache
stays.” I said, “Oh. Okay.” And then he said, “So long. I’ll see you in England.” I said, “Oh, f***.” I figured out what to do
with the hair, in that we would do it different each time, so it would look like Lex Luthor was wearing wigs – and I knew
he would buy that. So I had that all worked out, and I was moving forward preparing the film. The day he arrived, he
went into make-up. I called the head of make-up, and I said, “You got Hackman in there?” And he said, “Yes.” “Does
he have his mustache?” He said, “Oh yes.” I said, “ I want you to come down to my office right away.” I’d shaved my
mustache off – I got bored with it. I said, “I want you to come to my office right away and give me the best mustache
you’ve ever made.” He came down to my office, and I said, “I don’t want to see any lace or anything – just do me a
really good mustache.” He asked why, and I said, “Just do it.” So he does my mustache and I wait about a half-hour
and then I go up to the make-up room where they were doing different styles of Gene’s hair to show what it would look
like. I went in with my mustache. I said, “Hello.” He was really nice to me. I said, “Hey, we worked this all out. There’s
only once you have to wear the bald-cap – at the very end, and it will only be one shot.” He said, “I can handle that.” I
said, “Great, but, man, you know – the mustache… It’s just gotta go.” He said, “No no, the mustache is not going.” I
said, “I’ll tell you what – I’ll take mine off if you take yours off.” He looked at me and he said, “Oh yeah?” I said, “Yeah”
He said, “Okay. Okay. Alright.” He was in the make-up chair. I said, “Stuart, take Mr. Hackman’s mustache off.” And he
started to shake. I said, “Stuart, take his mustache off now!” So Stuart used an electric razor to cut it off. He shaved it
clean. Gene was sitting there, and then he looked over and said, “Okay, it’s your turn, pal.” I looked at him and just
took the edge of my mustache and I peeled it off. He looked at me – and his neck from his head to his shoulders
started to throb – and I knew he was going to beat the s*** out of me. He looked, and then a smile came on his face
and he started to laugh, and he said, “You got me. I owe you one.” From there on in he became, to me, one of the
lights of my life – as both a friend and a great actor. That’s how you get things out of people. I could have locked horns
with him and said, “It comes off” and he would have said “no” and we would have hated each other. So that’s how you
get a performance – they put trust in you.

IGNFF: Was there anything similar with Brando?

 35
DONNER: We were either shooting already or preparing, and I had to come back to the States to meet with Brando. I
came back with the writer and the producer. Before I came back, I called Coppola and said, “Francis, tell me about
Brando.” He said, “Are you going to work with him?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Okay, listen. The guy’s a genius, and he
likes to talk. He never stops talking. If you’ve got a problem with him, let him talk, because he’ll always talk himself out
of it.” I said, “Oh, great.” Then I called his agent, Jay Cantor, who’s been his agent for years. “Look, I’m gonna work
with him. Can you give me any hints?” He said, “Well, I’ll tell you – Marlon’s notorious in that, if he can talk you out of
photographing him – let’s say, you can photograph a green suitcase – he can talk you into the fact that he should be a
green suitcase. It means that he’ll never have to go to work – you’ll photograph the green suitcase, you’ll record his
voice, and he’ll get paid X millions of dollars for not going to work.” So I’m armed with all of this, and we go up to his
house. I’m thunderstruck – it’s Marlon friggin’ Brando. He’s charming and we talk for about an hour. He was telling me
a story about his kid. He told his kid the story about the fox that jumped over the wall and went around the log – and
the kid says, “Oh no, daddy, he went around the wall and jumped over the log.” And he said, “You know, kids know
everything today.” And then it went on, and after about an hour or two, he said, “Listen – that’s not why you guys are
here… You want to talk about my character, my costumes…” And we said, “Yes.” “So listen, “ he says, “I was
thinking…” And I’m prepared for a green suitcase, right? So he says, “Listen, I was thinking – what if I look like a
bagel?” I said, “What?” The two guys – Mankiewicz and Salkind – said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, this is
Krypton. Nobody knows what the people on Krypton look like. What if we look like bagels, but I’m going to make my
son look like a human because that’s where I’m sending him – to Earth – but everybody else on Krypton looks like
bagels. That would really be original.” It was really an intelligent observation – it doesn’t have to be a bagel, it could be
a nondescript thing. The producer said, “Ah… That’s interesting.” I think he was sucked in. Tom looked at me like,
“What the hell are we gonna do?” I said, “You know, Marlon, you were telling me the story about your kid and how the
fox jumped over the wall and went around the log, but he really should have gone around the wall and jumped over the
log …” He said, “Yes…” And I said, “You said kids know everything…” And he said, “Yes…” I said, “There isn’t a kid
since 1939 that doesn’t know what Jor-El looks like.” He said, “I talk too much, don’t I?” I said, “Maybe…” And he said,
“Okay, show me my costume.” And that was it! From there on in, it was that kind of a relationship. Both Gene and
Brando – there wasn’t a person on that picture that wasn’t a delight. Of course, the most delightful were Chris and
Margot.

IGNFF: If you were to sum up one difficulty, and one thing that you thought was going to be difficult but wasn’t, what
would those be?

DONNER: The most difficult thing was the relationship of working with the producers – by far. I found them to be very
counterproductive. The thing I had the biggest fear of, I guess, was could I convince somebody that a man could fly. It
took me a year before I approved the first flying shot – it was the most incredibly difficult process. This was front
projection units that weighed over a ton, and I had to fly them – but we developed one that weighed 35 pounds. To
answer your question, I thought it was going to be difficult working with all of those actors, but it turned out to be – as it
has been for 99% of my career – a total delight.
36
IGNFF: What defines a difficult actor for you?

DONNER: I was an actor to start with, so I’m kind of empathetic. A motion picture is made up of more than one
character, and each set of those characters has to live their own life – and each one of them sees the situation they’re
living differently, so it becomes extremely subjective. The director comes in, and he’s supposed to take all of this
subjectivity and hone it down into some sense of objectivity. If you’re not in control of the direction you want those
actors to go in, you’re going to have anywhere from two to ten different points of views of a movie, and nobody
focusing in on the same. Some actors just won’t bend, and then it’s a bitch. You either fight and argue or – if you’re
really smart – you find ways of putting your words in their mouth and letting them say it back at you and say, “That’s
brilliant.” It’s only been a couple of times in my life that I’ve really locked horns with actors. It did not hurt the films, it
just hurt the moment of the filmmaking.

IGNFF: What led to the decision to revisit and restore Superman?

DONNER: It was 1978 when Superman came out, and I kept thinking, “Why don’t they do something about it. It’s been
laying around. They’ve done all these crappy attempts at comic book film adaptations – some worked, most didn’t.
What can we do different? Why don’t we just re-release this thing?” My first thought was to re-release it as a feature,
and then they came and said, “No, let’s do it as a DVD.” So, if we couldn’t do it as a feature, let’s do it as a DVD and
expose it to a lot more people that have never seen it before. When that started to move, they started to get excited,
and now they re-released it as a feature also.

IGNFF: What decision-making process did you go through in deciding which scenes to put back into the film?

DONNER: I had not seen the film in a long, long time, so what we decided to do was look at everything that I had –
look at the rolls of outtakes – and decide why we took them out. The interesting thing is that that picture never really
had an honest break – it was never previewed because the producers decided that they were not going to preview it
because they didn’t trust Warners with the film. When that picture opened in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center,
that’s the first audience that ever saw the picture. When you make a film, you like to run it with an audience. You can
be pretty self-centered and narrow-minded and totally subjective and not have any idea what is really happening
audience-wise – therefore you run it with an audience, they tell you exactly that… you’re narrow-minded or subjective,
or that seems too long, or that doesn’t work. I never had that chance. We just took out scenes arbitrarily, and those
scenes were never seen in a motion picture theater. When this opportunity arose, the editor – Stuart Baird, my favorite
editor – and myself went back with Michael Thau and said, “Hey, let’s put back everything that we took out!” With a
rare exception.

IGNFF: Was there one scene in particular that you’ve regretted taking out that is now back in the film?

DONNER: I love Ned Beatty so much. Well, there’s two. There’s a scene with Brando and Chris, where he addresses
his son. The other thing I looked for was Ned Beatty feeding those things underground.
 37
IGNFF: I’ve seen the scenes that are being put back in, and there is a question I have to ask you. During the Krypton
sequence, you’ve reinstated the footage which introduces the Kryptonian police office that the council sends after Jor-
El shortly before the planet’s destruction. Unfortunately, it plays like a dangling plot line, since we never see anymore
of the officer – despite the fact that footage exists showing his demise en route to Jor-El’s residence…

DONNER: It’s not there. It doesn’t exist. I couldn’t find it, and Michael Thau couldn’t find it. I just don’t think it exists.

IGNFF: The footage does exist in the TV version.

DONNER: Of his death?

IGNFF: Of his death…. It’s a reflection in the officer’s visor as he’s crushed by falling debris…

DONNER: Boy oh boy…. Boy oh boy… You’ve hit me with something. I don’t think we found the footage. I think that’s
what it was. You’ve brought up something that’s a big hole for me right now. I’ve got to find out. I’ve got to ask Michael
what happened.

IGNFF: I was just wondering from a plot point of view, since a character is introduced within some of the footage you
reinstated, and then there’s no follow-up.

DONNER: Right. It had to exist at one time though… I just don’t know where the hell it is.

IGNFF: Well, I wanted to make sure I asked.

DONNER: Well, you opened up a hole – because we rushed this damn thing – now I’m worried.

IGNFF: Well, we’ll move on, so we don’t dwell on it…

DONNER: Yes, please… So I can sleep tonight…

IGNFF: I wanted to ask you about the new sound mix, and what the difficulties were in creating it…

DONNER: There was no difficulty at all. The digital processing for sound is extraordinary, and it gave us no problem
whatsoever.

IGNFF: Were there any difficulties in finding original sound elements?

DONNER: No, they just had to be cleaned and brought up to a contemporary standard – but we found everything.

IGNFF: There have been reports that the sound effects were recreated – that they are not the original sound effects.

DONNER: Let me just tell you something – if somebody did that and I don’t know about it, I’m going to kill somebody.
Michael would not have done that.

IGNFF: There have been numerous reports of sounds that people remember well being completely different in this
new mix, from the rings rotating around the Kryptonian criminals to the searing sounds of the title sequence…

DONNER: Do you mean different sounds, or they were enhanced?

38
IGNFF: Different sounds…

DONNER: That doesn’t make sense. I know we enhanced the sound, but I don’t think we added any. I, quite honestly,
did not hear the final mix. I heard the three run-throughs, and all we did was enhance sound.

IGNFF: People claim the new sounds sound completely dissimilar from the originals…

DONNER: God almighty.

IGNFF: Of course, in cleaning up the sound, it could be that people are confusing clean sound with new sound…

DONNER: That they could have been brought through…Or they were re-emphasized.

IGNFF: That’s the only concerns I’ve heard – everyone enjoys the picture quality, but are disappointed by the remix.
Sorry for bringing the points up.

DONNER: I’m glad you did this, so I’m not being blind-sided after this.

IGNFF: I know people have been looking forward to this, especially with the recent spate of horrible comic book films…

DONNER: Is that not a disgrace?

IGNFF: It’s interesting that more people don’t take the lead that you established when it comes to being faithful with an
adaptation…

DONNER: You know, there was talk we were going to go back and redo every optical, every effect for this new edition,
but then I said, “Wait wait wait…If you’re going to do it, do it in a new picture.”

IGNFF: Lucas has already shown the pitfalls of going back and redoing things…

DONNER: No comment.

IGNFF: The overdigitalization of those special editions took away from the reality of those original films…I still think
digital hasn’t gained the reality that good optical effects have…

DONNER: You’re right. By my standards, you can really screw it up.

IGNFF: How strong was the temptation – when you were looking at certain shots during the restoration process – to
say, “You know, if we just went into the computer…”

DONNER: It was unbelievably exciting. If I hadn’t of come home that night and really sat down and talked to myself, I
probably would have done it. When I really started to think about it, I said, “Wait a minute – I’m changing a movie. It’s
not the movie I made.”

IGNFF: And it’s not the movie that people have grown fond of over the course of 23 years…

DONNER: 23 years… It’s amazing that it holds up. When you tell me that people are saying nice things about it, it’s
terribly exciting. One of the exciting things about being a director is that you make a movie – nobody knows who you
are – and you go sit in the front row, and right now you know that you’re going to scare the s*** out of them, or you’re
 39
going to make them cry, or make them laugh, or make them fall in love – and you can look back and watch the
audience, and it’s one of the most exhilarating, self-satisfying moments. I love to be in the theater and look back.

IGNFF: Is it a bigger kick for you to know that you have a film that’s stood up for over two-decades, or is it a bigger kick
to sit down with an audience at a brand new film you’ve done?

DONNER: For something that has been around as long as Superman in my life, it’s totally new. Totally new and very
exciting. What would be more exciting? I think probably – if it worked with the older one and you could still hold them –
it would be very satisfying.

IGNFF: Let’s say the studio gods looked down and decided to offer the next Superman film to a certain well-respected
director… What would his response be?

DONNER: I’ll tell you something… I was really disappointed that Warner Bros. didn’t think highly enough of my film or
my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman. I would have loved to have done it, because I don’t think I would
have screwed with it. I think I would have found a handle to keep the tradition pure. Somebody else asked me that,
and asked what I would think of Mel Gibson playing Superman… I said, “Not right now. Maybe 10 years ago he would
have been terrific, since he’s such an incredible actor – if he had made up his mind to play him, he would have.” But
then I said, “Wait a minute. I have a wild idea – what if it’s Superman at this age? Maybe he’s called upon to come
back to life – to come back into the world that he’s forgotten for so many years.” Then Mel could have done it. I mean,
they’re talking about messing with his costume! That’s like messing with apple pie and white bread.

IGNFF: That’s why a good deal of people go back to your Superman, because it was so faithful to the comic… Now,
when people adapt, all they talk about is “reinventing” and “modernizing” the character…

DONNER: Right… Why? Maybe some characters don’t live like he does. I made three separate movies. I felt that
Krypton had a life and a look of its own. I really, really researched the comic books and the old movies and a lot of
things that had been written about it – and I had this wonderful production designer, who died, named John Barry. As
soon as the crystals came in, Krypton took on a life of its own. Then, in going to Smallville and Glenn Ford, it took on
another look and another feeling for me. It had a different emotion – it was a little purer… a little less comic-booky. And
then, on the cut to Metropolis and the blast of horns and Clark getting out of a cab, it became a city that was going to
have a life that was bigger-than-life, yet was going to be forced to believe in a guy that could fly in tights and a red
cape. So each one of them for me, was a separate movie, with ties that bind.

IGNFF: You also set up nicely how faithful it was going to be with the prologue of the little kid opening up the comic
book…

DONNER: Thanks.

IGNFF: Which no comic book to film adaptation would ever do nowadays, due to some fear of alienating the audience
– without even knowing who they’re playing to.
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DONNER: That’s the problem. When they do these, I don’t think they know who their audience is.

IGNFF: Is it true that you were offered to direct Superman IV?

DONNER: No. After Superman 1 and 2/3, I never spoke to them again until recently.

IGNFF: What is this rumor that’s been going around lately of talks regarding you going back and recutting Superman
II?

DONNER: There was talk from Warner Bros. At the time, the studio wanted me to go back in and recut the film and
add anything I wanted to add or do anything I wanted to do. Quite honestly, I was done with it. I was finished with it. I
had such a bad experience with the Salkind family that I just didn’t need it anymore, and I had found a wonderful little
film that I wanted to make very badly, called Inside Moves, and I was dedicating my life to that… Which, by the way, is
one of my favorites. It’s really a great story about what friendship can really be … what life can really be about. So, at
that point, there was no going back to those people.

IGNFF: Does the footage you shot still exist, to where you could do it now?

DONNER: I don’t know, and I wouldn’t do it anymore. I’ve done mine, and that’s it. There was a scene in Superman II
where Chris becomes human and he gets punched by a trucker in a diner, and he tastes blood for the first time, and
he feels pain for the first time. There was an interview, and the director who finished the picture talked about how
important that scene was to him as a filmmaker, and – believe it or not – I’m in that scene, and I wanted to say, “You
son of a bitch, you didn’t do that scene. Not only didn’t you make that scene, I’m in it!” It was in the parking lot, as the
camera crosses up to the diner. I couldn’t believe it. So anyway, it’s gone… it’s done… it’s in the past.

IGNFF: A lot of people would love to see if you could reconstruct your vision of the film…

DONNER: You know, there were scenes I shot that they didn’t even use.

IGNFF: Didn’t they also reshoot stuff you had already shot?

DONNER: Yup. Like the way she finds out that he’s Superman. In the DVD, you’ll see the test that I used for one of the
actresses. I actually shot that scene later with Margot and Christopher, and they decided that theirs would be better –
that his hand goes into the fire or something at the hotel and he doesn’t feel the pain. Whereas, in mine, she fires a
gun at him.

IGNFF: I must say, I prefer your version…

DONNER: It was wonderful!

IGNFF: Wasn’t there also an entirely different sequence at the Daily Planet, where Lois jumps out the window to prove
Clark is Superman?

DONNER: Yeah.

IGNFF: That was filmed, wasn’t it?

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DONNER: Let’s see… She has a newspaper picture of Superman in front of her, and she starts to draw Clark’s hat
and glasses on, and then she says, “Son of a b…” and she walks over to the window. Clark walks over and she says,
“You know Clark, I think you’re Superman.” And he says, “Oh Lois, we’re not going to go through that again.” She
says, “Last time I bet your life. This time, I’m going to bet mine.” And he says, “What are you doing Lois? Don’t be
stupid!” And she climbs out the window and jumps. So, of course, in a fraction of a second he’s downstairs and on the
street, and he looks up, she’s falling, and he blows up – making her like a leaf coming down in the wind – then he
makes an awning over a store pop out, she hits the awning and rolls into a fruit cart and is covered in fruit. He runs
back upstairs, sticks his head out the window, and says, “Lois, what did you do?” She looks up and she faints. It was
cute, it was charming…

IGNFF: And, instead, we get that embarrassing terrorist opening sequence…

DONNER: To tell you the truth, I saw it once, and I barely remember the movie.

IGNFF: You’re one of the lucky ones. But all the stuff with Hackman that’s in the film is stuff that you shot, right?

DONNER: Yes. He never came back. Everything they had in II with Susannah York was originally Brando material. It
was all shot, but they didn’t want to use it because they’d have to pay him again.

IGNFF: They’re such wonderful people…

DONNER: I know. Anyway, life goes on…

IGNFF: If there are any regrets you have about the Superman series, what are they?

DONNER: Just that I wasn’t allowed to finish II. Tom Mankiewicz and I had plans for about 3 more films. I really had
hopes to stay on and just do these films. We had wonderful stories – I don’t even remember what they are anymore,
but I remember that we’d sit up nights and come up with ideas, and we had great, great scripts. That’s my only regret,
really.

IGNFF: What do you think is your biggest triumph with Superman?

DONNER: I think, maybe, that he actually flew. I just couldn’t believe we could make him fly the way we did. And, I
guess, working with Christopher. He convinced me he could fly, and he’s convinced me that he’s going to walk again.

IGNFF: There’s one sequence I have to ask you about in the film, because it’s one sequence I can never get into – the
“can you read my mind” sequence. I was wondering what your thoughts were behind that sequence…

DONNER: A lot of people could get into it and a lot of people couldn’t. I loved it. For me, it was kind of romantic and
corny. I didn’t know how to do it, but I wanted to make it happen. I wanted to have them fly together and… I don’t
know… I just wanted a little romantic moment. I thought it worked at the time, and haven’t reevaluated it since. I
probably would cringe. I remember Margot reading it and our laying it over her as she was flying. I remember it was a
hit single – not with her, but with someone else – but hey, “you does your thing and you take your chances.”
Everybody warned me – kids are going to see this, and whenever kids see anything romantic or people kissing or
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people holding hands, you’re going to lose the audience. I said, “Well, everybody’s got to take a whiz sometime. Now’s
their time.”