Was it a bird? Was it a plane?
No, what appeared in movie theaters 45 years ago Friday was a new movie about comic book hero Superman featuring an unknown actor at the time, Christopher Reeve. “Superman: The Movie” would set records for best opening day, best weekly gross and would become the sixth-highest grossing film, at the time.
Producers considered several actors to play the lead role including Clint Eastwood, James Caan, Nick Nolte, Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds. After both Warren Beatty and Robert Redford turned down the role, producers began testing relatively unknown actors. Twenty-six-year- old Reeve was paid only $250,000 for this film and for “Superman 2.”
East had auditioned to play Superman and also tried out for the role of Jimmy Olsen. He was outfitted with a wig and a fake nose to make him look a little more like Reeve. It took three to four hours every day to apply the makeup.Producers had Reeve overdub all of East's dialogue as young Clark. He says he was nearly injured in the scene in which he races a train.
More than 100 actors were considered to play Lane, including Lesley Ann Warren, Susan Blakely and Stockard Channing. After extensive screen tests, Kidder was given the role when she was the only one who saw the humor in the line, “What color underwear am I wearing?” when her character tries to verify Superman really has X-ray vision.
Originally, Keenan Wynn was cast as the editor of the Daily Planet but had to drop out because of heart issues. Cooper, who had originally auditioned to play Otis took over the role. Cooper had begun his acting career at age 3 in 1925 and appeared in Hal Roach's “Our Gang” comedy shorts. He was nominated for an Academy Award at age 9 for his work in “Skippy.”
Dustin Hoffman, Gene Wilder, Jack Nicholson and George Kennedy were all considered for the role of Superman's archnemesis. Hackman was reluctant to take the role — he feared it would damage his reputation as a serious actor. He declined to shave off his mustache for the film until director Richard Donner offered to shave off his, too. Donner was wearing a fake mustache.
Brando was paid $3.7 million plus a percentage of the film's gross for 12 days of shooting that resulted in 10 minutes of screentime. He had declined to memorize his lines, so in the scene in which he places his infant son into an escape pod, he was reading his dialogue written on the baby's diaper. Reeve accused Brando of “phoning in” his performance.
The scenes of Superman's early life on a farm near Smallville, Kansas, were filmed in Alberta, Canada. Glenn Ford played “Pa” Kent. Producers wanted Joan Crawford for the role of Ma Kent, but when Crawford became ill, hired Phyllis Thaxter instead. The young Clark Kent was played by Lee Quigley. Quigley died in 1991 at age 14 after huffing air freshener from a can.
In order to build himself up to a more muscular frame, Reeve trained extensively with British bodybuilder David Prowse — who had played Darth Vader in “Star Wars” — to go from his original 170 pounds to 212 pounds. He continued to work out after shooting began to the point where footage of him shot at different times didn't match and required reshoots.
The 36-story New York Daily News building on East 42nd Street was used to film the Daily Planet scenes. The movie was filming on the night of the 1977 New York City blackout. The Daily News was able to publish anyway because producers loaned the newspaper their generators. The Daily News sold the building in 1982 and moved out of it in 1995.
Producers were originally going to film the helicopter scene — in which Lois Lane first meets Superman — atop New York's Pan Am building. But a few weeks before the sequence was to be shot, a helicopter was in an accident atop that building. Several passengers were killed plus one pedestrian killed by a falling helicopter blade.
Kidder was originally supposed to sing “Can You Read My Mind?” as Lois and Superman flew over Metropolis. Donner disliked the result, so he changed it to a voiceover. Kidder said she became bored, just hanging there during delays in filming, so she would tap Reeve's codpiece. It was made of metal and would give off a loud “ping.”
Producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind had planned to film both “Superman: The Movie” and “Superman II” together. Donner filmed all of the first and about two-thirds of the sequel when the Salkinds fired him after what they said was cost and scheduling overruns. They hired Richard Lester — who had directed “A Hard Day's Night” — to complete “Superman II.”
“Superman: The Movie” made $2.8 million on opening day and set a U.S. box office record at the time with $12 million in its first week of release. It became the highest grossing movie released in 1978 in North America and the sixth-highest grossing film of all time, at the time. Warner Bros. went on to make three more Superman movies with Christopher Reeve, but none was as successful as the first.
Each movie after the first within the original Superman tetralogy was increasingly less successful. The dismal fourth movie ended up ending the series.
19 years later, director Bryan Singer brought in Brand Routh for a reboot.
More recently, Warner Bros. attempted to again reboot a series of movies starring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and others.
This edition of Further Review was adapted for the web by Zak Curley.
