Superman The Movie (An Theatrical Version)

> You will travel far, my little Kal-El. But we will never leave you... even in the face of our death. The richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel... all this, and more, I... I bequeath you, my son. You will carry me inside you, all the days of your life.
>
> Jor-El

## Superman: The Movie

### Produced by

Alexander Salkind
Ilya Salkind
Pierre Spengler

### Budget

$55,000,000

***Superman: The Movie*** (title card stylized as ***Superman***) is the original 1978 theatrical release that launched *Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology*. A landmark motion picture of its era, the film stars Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder.
Its groundbreaking use of special effects and science fiction/fantasy storytelling has made it one of the most successful and influential films of all time. The film depicts the origin of Superman, including his infancy on Krypton and his childhood years in Smallville. Disguised as reporter Clark Kent, he adopts a mild-mannered disposition in Metropolis and develops a romance with Lois Lane, while battling the villainous Lex Luthor.

***Superman***, also known as ***Superman: The Movie***, is a 1978 super hero movie by Richard Donner. It is the first movie starring Christopher Reeve as Superman.

## Plot/Synopsis for "Superman: The Movie"

Thirty years ago on the planet Krypton, leading scientist Jor-El tries to warn the Council about the impending doom of Krypton's destruction, but the members of the Council fear that Jor-El is inciting sedition with his doomsday forecast. Earlier on Jor-El had to deal with General Zod, who along with two other dangerous criminals Ursa and Non were inciting sedition against Krypton's government; they were punished and sentenced to eternal imprisonment in the Phantom Zone. Realizing that his warnings are falling on deaf ears, Jor-El returns home to his wife Lara, saying that now is the time to put their young son Kal-El into the star ship which he intends to launch and send to the planet called Earth. Lara sees the Earth as being primitive and that Kal-El will be a stranger among them, but Jor-El assures her that his son shall never be alone. As they watch the star ship rise into the sky and depart from Krypton, the ground crumbles underneath their feet and everyone else's until both Krypton and its sun explodes.

The star ship carrying Kal-El, however, survives and travels through space, causing the child to age a few years while also educating him. It burns up as it enters the Earth's atmosphere and crash-lands in a nearby Smallville field, causing Jonathan and Martha Kent to pull over and investigate. They see a young three-year-old child emerge from the wreckage unharmed. The Kents discuss what they wish to do with the child when the truck falls off the jack, almost crushing Jonathan who was working underneath it to change a flat tire. Kal-El easily lifts up the truck, making the Kents wonder if the child really came from outer space somewhere.

At age 18, Kal-El, who is now Clark Kent, is busy putting away equipment for the Smallville High's football team when his friend Lana Lang invites him over to listen to records. Clark accepts the offer, but realizes that he has so much work to do and so watches Lana drive off with her friends. Frustrated, Clark kicks a football high into the air and then races back home at super-speed, amazingly outracing an approaching locomotive. His adoptive father Jonathan Kent tells him that he was brought here to Earth with the powers he has for a purpose, and it wasn't for showing off in front of his friends. As Clark tries to get his father to race him to the house, Jonathan suffers a fatal stroke and dies, making Clark feel ashamed that with all his powers, he couldn't save his father.

Sometime following the funeral, Clark Kent is called into the barn, where he uncovers the wrecked star ship and finds the very thing that has called him: a glowing green crystal. He says goodbye to his mother Martha and then sets out toward the North Pole, where he flings the green crystal into the frozen Arctic Sea. From where it lands, it creates a structure made of slanted long white crystals into which Clark enters. By inserting a crystal into a tube, he causes the image of his real father Jor-El appear before him, to instruct him on what he needs to know about himself and about the powers he possesses, learning that his real name is Kal-El. He spends 12 years in the Fortress with the image of Jor-El teaching him, and then later at the end of the teaching, as Jor-El's image departs, Clark Kent now stands in the uniform of a superhero and soon takes off to his destiny.

Arriving in Metropolis, Clark Kent is hired on as a reporter for the Daily Planet by its editor Perry White, who immediately assigns him to work alongside his best reporter Lois Lane. As Lois shows Clark around the city and the Planet, a man in a suit named Otis makes his way through the underground subway tunnels until he enters a secret passageway that leads him to the palatial residence of Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mastermind. Lex takes the paper Otis delivers him and notices that the U.S. military is planning to do some nuclear missile tests soon, which he hopes to use for his latest scheme of owning what would eventually become valuable real estate.

That night, as Lois attempts to take off on an assignment in a Daily Planet helicopter, the helicopter track snags on cable, causing it spin out of control and crash, knocking out the pilot and sending Lois dangling precariously, with almost nothing separating her from the ground. With the chopper teetering dangerously on the edge of the roof, Lois screams for help as she hangs on for dear life, slowly losing her grip as the Helicopter. Clark hears her call and quickly changes into his uniform, and rescues both Lois and the helicopter just as they both slide off the roof. After landing safely back on the helipad, Lois asks who he is, and all he could say is, "a friend", before he takes off, causing her to faint.

But more surprises would come that night: a would-be cat burglar would be scared by the sight of a man standing in front of him on the side of a building; a group of bank robbers escaping on a boat would have them and their boat hauled all the way to the Metropolis police headquarters; a little girl's cat would be gently rescued from a tree by a flying man; and Air Force One would have a "replacement engine" when lightning struck one of its engines, causing it to nearly crash-land. The flying man behind it all would make front-page news everywhere, and Perry wants his reporters to get the scoop on who this man is.

Lois, however, is given a secret message by "a friend" to meet him at her place that evening. Believing that it's the same person who rescued her, Lois waits until he shows up, then casually eases her way into doing an interview with him to find out who he is, where he came from, what his abilities and weaknesses are. Her friend invites Lois to take her out on a flight to test that particular ability together, and so she bravely holds on as he flies her all around the city, around the Statue of Liberty, and even high into the clouds. It is after he takes her back to her apartment and flies away that Lois gives him the suitable name -- Superman. With her interview in the papers, Lex Luthor now plots on how he can get rid of a possible threat to his plans.

One day as Clark Kent is pulled into Perry White's office for a talk, his ears pick up a high-pitched shrill and the voice of a man threatening to detonate a bomb in the middle of the city. He quickly changes into Superman and follows the voice to the underground lair of Lex Luthor, where he is subjected to a gauntlet of dangers that he survives through without a scratch before entering. Now having Superman's attention, Luthor shows him the plan of detonating two nuclear devices that he and his lackeys have reprogrammed to specific locations: the first toward the San Andreas Fault where it will cause a massive earthquake that will level much of California into the sea; the other heading toward Hackensack, New Jersey. Luthor also tricks Superman into opening a lead-lined box that had a chunk of Kryptonite attached to a chain, which Luthor wraps around the Kryptonian's neck as its radiation weakens him before being dumped into Luthor's pool to drown.

While Luthor watches the launch of the nuclear missiles, Eva Tessmacher fears for the life of her mother in Hackensack and so bravely rescues Superman for the promise that he would stop the missile heading for the East Coast first, throwing the chain with the Kryptonite away into a sewer grating. Racing as quickly as he could after the missile, Superman manages to grab it from behind and push it toward outer space where it will detonate harmlessly. But as he looks back, he sees that the other missile has hit its target, and now he has to stop a massive earthquake from destroying millions of lives -- including those of his friends Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane, who are assigned to do a story about the land grab on the western side of the San Andreas Fault.

Though Superman succeeds in replugging the fault line before it completely collapsed, the aftershocks still do some major damage: the Golden Gate Bridge slowly falls apart, causing a school bus to be pushed dangling off the side of the bridge; a rip in the ground across a railroad track threatens to derail a racing locomotive; the Hoover Dam is cracking and is about to deluge a nearby community. As Superman deals with each of these dangers as fast and as efficiently as possible, yet he doesn't come to Lois' rescue in time before she is crushed to death in her car as a rip in the ground swallows up her vehicle. Enraged by this loss, Superman causes time to miraculously reverse itself, undoing all the damage that the detonated missile has caused, and then causes it to go forward again, so all that Lois remembers is that her car just ran out of gas.

After meeting with Lois and Jimmy again to make sure everything is all right with them, particularly with Lois who is now starting to cast eyes on him, Superman brings Luthor and Otis into custody with the police, putting them in prison where they belong.

On the distant planet of Krypton, the home world of a highly-evolved race resembling humans and bearing a unique molecular density and structure, a result of the planet's gravitational strength and the radiation of its crimson central star. The planet is ruled by a Council of Elders, each representing a particular "tribe" and bearing a crest of that particular House. The planet's greatest scientist bears an S-shaped crest, the House of El. Jor-El is supervising the conviction of three criminals caught attempting to overthrow the planet's government - General Zod, the planet's former defense chief; his henchman Non, a hulking killer unable to speak; and Ursa, a woman determined to exterminate men other than the man she loves, Zod. The vast dome of the planet's capital city, Kryptonopolis, opens to the night, and an extra-dimensional pyramid - the Phantom Zone - tumbles out of the sky and absorbs the three criminals into an eternity in dimensional limbo through space.

However, Jor-El's more pressing concern lies in the orbital shift of Krypton; this shift is putting the planet into the fatal gravitational pull of its central star, a fact blithely ignored by the Council of Elders. The leader of the Council forbids Jor-El from warning the larger populace or he will be imprisoned in the Phantom Zone himself. Jor-El promises to be silent and that he and his wife will not attempt to leave the planet. Jor-El chooses instead to construct a crystalline starship for his infant son Kal-El. Jor-El's wife Lara, however, is concerned, for the starship is programmed to take the child through a trans-galactic warp to a planet populated by primitive humans whose technological development is millennia behind Krypton, a planet that orbits a yellow sun, a planet called Earth. Jor-El, however, understands that the planet's yellow sun will give Kal-El superhuman powers that will give him the advantage he needs to survive. Jor-El and Lara bid their child goodbye before Jor-El installs a Green Crystal into the ship, a crystal containing the very essence of himself and Lara as well as the knowledge of the entire universe. He then completes the assembly of the starship - just as the planet is pulled into a fatal plunge toward its red sun. The starship is launched and escapes the system scant minutes before the planet is torn open, collides with its star, and both bodies are obliterated in a holocaust of fire and debris.

The tiny starship passes the Phantom Zone before accelerating on its journey to the planet Earth, with the voice of Jor-El providing the infant, who is aging as the ship proceeds, with knowledge. The ship finally reaches Earth and plunges like a meteor into a vast wheat field near Smallville, Kansas - within sight of local farmers ***Jonathan*** and ***Martha Kent***. Upon seeing the meteor the Kents discover the now-three-year-old Kal-El, draped in a red robe; Martha, believing the child is a gift from God, decides to adopt him, and the child demonstrates that he is different when, as Jonathan is changing a tire on his truck and the jack slips, he innocently lifts the vehicle with his bare hands, saving his foster father's life.

Some fifteen years pass and the child, named Clark, is a student at Smallville High School who is shy and frequently bullied by star jock Brad. Clark knows of the vast power he possesses but is forbidden by his father from showing it - although, alone on a football field, he kicks a ball into orbit, then runs home by outrunning a speeding passenger train.

Clark returns home as Brad and other students drive by, surprised that he arrived home so quickly. Jonathan, however, reassures Clark that he is on Earth for a reason and that he should not let others bother him. Clark thus feels better, but as he starts to play with the family dog, Jonathan suddenly stops, quivering; He then falls to the ground, victim of a heart attack. After Jonathan's burial the grieving Clark blames himself, for with all his powers he couldn't even save his own father.

Some time later Clark is awakened early one morning by a mysterious noise, emanating from the barn. Clark enters the barn and finds the remains of the meteor, and with it the now-activated spire of Jor-El. A few days later Clark tells his mother that he must leave, and head north. Martha, having known this day would come, urges her son to always remember, and the tearful Clark vows to do just that as they embrace for one final time.

Days later Clark reaches the North Pole, where he takes the green crystal and throws it miles into the distance, where it melts into the ice and begins construction of a gigantic crystalline structure, a Fortress of Solitude. Inside Clark finds a matrix table of crystals; placing one into an aperture, he activates a dimensional communicator that reveals the spirit of Jor-El, his true father. Jor-El provides the youth with his true identity of Kal-El and takes his son on a journey through time and space to complete his maturation, educating him on the universe and on his purpose in life. When the journey ends, Kal-El has aged twelve years to the age of 30, Kal-El is now clad in a red-and-blue costume with red cape and bearing the crest of the House Of El, ready to fulfill his purpose of protecting his new home world in the memory of Krypton.

Metropolis, the greatest city in the world. At the skyscraper home of its largest newspaper, the ***Daily Planet***, photographer Jimmy Olsen is shooting photos of a typically kinetic day in the life of the Planet, including ace reporter Lois Lane (who despite this status has a problem with spelling, frequently being corrected for misspelled words). Lois and Jimmy are introduced by the paper's grumpy editor, ***Perry White***, to its newest member, a tall shy bespectacled news writer named Clark Kent. Lois is initially puzzled by the man's shyness and mild social clumsiness, and is particularly struck when the two of them are held up in a back alley by a gunman, Clark faints when the thug opens fire on Lois (the fainting is cover so Clark can catch the bullet in his bare hand, which causes the gunman to run), and in defending himself to Lois rattles off a listing of all the items in her purse.

As Lois and Clark hail a taxi, walking past them is a white-dressed heavyset man munching on snacks and carrying a copy of the Planet. The man is tailed by ***Harry*** and ***Armis***, two undercover cops, for he is ***Otis***, a clumsy henchman for criminal genius ***Lex Luthor***, and he is on his way to Luthor's secret hideout. The cops tail him to ***Metropolis Grand Central Station***, where Harry sends Armis to get backup while he tails Otis onto subway Track 22 leading out of the station. Otis eventually finds an indentation in the underground tunnel and waits for a train to arrive. A doorway opens under the cover of the passing train, and after it is gone Harry goes to the doorway to try and figure out how to open it - a fatal mistake for monitoring the scene from hidden security cameras is Luthor himself, who activates the doorway and violently slides Harry into the path of another train.

Luthor's mistress, ***Eve Teschmacher***, is appalled by the scene, but Luthor arrogantly and condescendingly reminds her that it is an inevitable by-product of his status as the greatest criminal mind of the latter 20th century, a status to which he takes egotistical delight. When Otis arrives in their underground lair he is reminded of his clumsiness in allowing himself to be followed again, and is thus given the less-than-glamorous task of feeding "the babies," a gaggle of monstrous creatures in a vast pit used to dispatch intruders. Luthor's more pressing concern, however, lays in a story in the Planet that two nuclear cruise-type missiles with hypersonic speed are to be tested using live multi-megaton warheads soon. Luthor intends to use the missile test to fulfill the greatest real estate swindle in history - the detonation of the San Andreas Fault, which will collapse the Western coastline of the US (namely California and its major cities) into the ocean and thus make the seemingly worthless desert of the west - which Luthor has been secretly purchasing - into multi-billion dollar windfalls. It is a plan involving detonation of the fault and also the destruction of Metropolis as cover.

Later that night Lois Lane is scheduled to fly via Planet helicopter to Metropolis International Airport to greet Air Force One, but on the Planet's helipad she boards the chopper and when the chopper begins takeoff, a light cable is sucked free of its bracket and in the updraft caused by the chopper snags its landing skids, breaks, and plunges the chopper out of control through the helipad's control shed and crashing onto the ledge. As police hustle panicking bystanders on the streets below to safety Lois tries to crawl out of the chopper, but the ledge begins to crack and the chopper sags violently toward the street and Lois falls through, hanging on by a seat belt in the air.

But amid the panic in the streets, Clark Kent emerges from the Planet and notices a yellow rain hat on the sidewalk. Upon recognizing it as one Lois was wearing, he sees the stricken chopper, and while those around him run for safety, Clark keeps his head. Running to another building down the street, Clark opens his shirt to reveal the his emblem and then whirls through a revolving door at light speed and transmutes into Superman - to the awe and confusion of a nearby pimp.

Superman jumps into the air, just as Lois lets go of the belt and plunges to the street hundreds of stories below. Superman safely catches her and carries her upward. The chopper now breaks off the ledge and falls, but Superman safely snags it out of the air with one hand and carries it back to the Planet's helipad. When the awe-struck Lois asks who the stranger is, he merely replies, "A friend."

It is but the beginning, for Kal-El undertakes numerous feats of heroism - stopping a cat-burgler using gigantic magnets to scale the Solow Building, intercepting a boatload of bank-robbers, rescuing a cat from a tree, and rescuing Air Force One when a lighting strike shatters its portside engine and wing.

Watching the news about the stranger, Lex Luthor sees his arrival as a natural challenge, and the criminal warlord vows to destroy all that the stranger represents. Perry White, for his part, makes discovering the red-and-blue stranger the #1 priority of the Planet and sends his entire staff scurrying to find any scrap of information about "this flying whatchamacallit." Lois, however, scoops everyone when she gets a note requesting a dinner date at her penthouse from "a friend."

The dinner date takes place and as part of the interview, Kal-El gives Lois a ride in the sky - a flight that becomes almost a romantic dance as the two begin falling in love. Kal-El returns Lois to her apartment and the two bid reluctant goodbye. Lois quietly dubs him a true super man - and uses the term to identify the stranger in her subsequent front-page story. Luthor reads it and remembers a scientific theory; Superman's home world would be of a molecular construction that would be affected by the unique radiation of a yellow sun, and that meteors from Krypton upon landing on Earth would be affected to the point of emitting a radiation that would affect only Kryptonians. Luthor thus decides to put his theory to test by stealing a green meteorite unearthed in Ethiopia.

Later, Luthor's gang go to work intercepting the two missile convoys used for the big upcoming test; using a variety of guises they divert attention away from effort to reprogram the missiles' directional vectors; Otis, however, incorrectly programs one of the missiles.

Days later Clark is struck by a piercing signal - it is Lex Luthor on a radio frequency only he can hear. Luthor warns Superman that a poison gas pellet is to released into the air and kill the city's population. Clark sneaks away from others and jumps out a window, where he transmutes into Superman and traces Luthor's signal to the street; he drills into the ground and is met by Luthor's gauntlet of destruction - a wall of machine guns, then a wall of fire, finally a wall of liquid nitrogen that freezes the area. None has any effect on Superman, who bursts into Luthor's lair and demands knowledge of Luthor's gas pellet. Luthor lets the truth be known that it is a hoax, and guides Superman to a rambling revelation of his plan for the West Coast before revealing that two missiles are already launched upon Luthor's plan, with one aimed at California. Luthor reveals he can use a detonator to destroy the missiles, and Superman notices a box made of lead which he assumes hides Luthor's detonator. But when he opens it he is struck by a massive weakness, for the box contains the Ethiopian meteorite - Kryptonite, fitted to a chain necklace that Luthor drapes around him. He boasts to Superman that Hackensack, NJ, is the target of the second missile (the one incorrectly programmed by Otis) before dropping Superman into his pool to drown.

Luthor, however, has made a fatal mistake, for Eve Teschmacher's mother lives in Hackensack, and while Luthor and Otis monitor the errant missiles on their hypersonic flight, she pleads with Superman to stop the Hackensack missile first on his mission; he agrees and she frees him. Regaining his power, Superman blasts through the mammoth ceiling of the lair, into the sky, and on a direct course west. He tries to stop the first missile over Kansas but it dodges him, and he must overtake it and ram it into space - just as the second missile detonates the San Andreas Fault, setting off an devastating quake that is like the destruction of Krypton all over again, a nightmare that doubly drives Superman as he flies underneath the Earth's crust to stabilize the land and flies all across the area rescuing people amid the chaos wrought by the quake - but amid his enormous feats of heroism, one person in particular needs help, but when he hears the distant cries of Lois Lane, he is too late when she dies, buried in her car in the desert. Superman, seeing the body of Lois, tearfully kisses her, then rages into the sky. Despite the voice of Jor-El, which reminds him that he must not interfere with human history, Superman reveals a way to turn back time when he flies around the Earth's perimeter so quickly that it reverses the planet's rotation; once time has rewound to an appropriate point, Superman returns the planet to its original direction. Lois is now alive again, as are the others who may have perished, and the entire disaster has been averted.
Afterward, Superman delivers Luthor and Otis to a maximum security prison to hold him for trial. As Luthor shouts his defiance as he is led away by the guards, the prison ward thanks Superman for his good deeds. Superman humbly dismisses the praise as just his contribution to their mutual effort for the good of society even as he takes off into the high atmosphere to resume his patrol of his adopted home planet.

## Appearances

### Characters

#### **Featured Characters:**

* Superman (Clark Kent) ***(Origin)*** ***(First Physical Appearance)***

#### **Supporting Characters:**

* House of El
	+ Jor-El ***(First Physical Appearance; Dies)***
	+ Lara ***(First Physical Appearance; Dies)***
* Kent Family
	+ Martha Kent ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
	+ Johnathan Kent ***(Single Physical Appearance; Dies)***
* Lois Lane ***(First Physical Appearance; Dies)*** ***(Resurrected)***
* Jimmy Olsen ***(First Physical Appearance)***
* Perry White ***(First Physical Appearance)***

#### **Antagonists:**

* Lex Luthor ***(First Physical Appearance)***
	+ Eve Teschmacher ***(First Physical Appearance)***
	+ Otis ***(First Physical Appearance)***
* Phantom Zoners
	+ Zod ***(First Physical Appearance)***
	+ Non ***(First Physical Appearance)***
	+ Ursa ***(First Physical Appearance)***
* Mugger ***(UnNamed)*** ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Burglar ***(UnNamed)*** ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Bank Robbers ***(UnNamed)*** ***(Single Physical Appearance)***

#### **Other Characters:**

* Doc Frye ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* Martha Kent's Cousin ***(UnNamed)*** ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* Matt ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Schultzy ***(Dog)*** ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Lana Lang ***(First Physical Appearance)***
* Samuel Lane ***(Cameo)*** ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Ella Lane ***(Cameo)*** ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Brad Wilson ***(First Physical Appearance)***
* Kryptonian Science Council ***(First Physical Appearance; Dies)***
	+ Vond-Ah ***(Single Physical Appearance; Dies)***
* ***Lucy Lane*** ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* ***President of the United States*** ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* United States Army
* United States Navy
* Metropolis Police Department
	+ Detective Harry ***(Single Physical Appearance; Dies)***
	+ Detective Armus ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
	+ Officer Mooney ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
	+ Sergent Dolen ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Rex Reed ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Daily Planet Employees
	+ Tony ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
	+ Mike ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
	+ Nick ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
	+ Gil ***(Single Physical Appearance)***
* Judy ***(Gil's wife)*** ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* God ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* Moses ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
* Peter-Pan ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***

### **Locations:**

* Donnerverse ***(First Physical Appearance)***
* Space
	+ Rao ***(Destroyed)***
		- Krypton ***(Destroyed)***
			* Phantom Zone
	+ Earth
		- North Pole
			* Fortress of Solitude
		- United States of America
			* Galifornia
				+ Golden Gate Bridge
			* Smallville, Kansas
				+ Smallville High School
				+ Kent Farm
				+ Smallville Cemetery
			* Metropolis
				+ Metropolis Grand Central Station
					- Luthor's Lair
				+ Daily Planet
					- Perry White's Office
				+ Lois Lane's Apartment
				+ Statue of Liberty
			* ***New Jersey*** ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
				+ Hackensack ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
			* Nevada
				+ Hoover Dam
			* ***North Dakota*** ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***
		- ***Ethiopia***
			* Addis Ababa ***(Entirely Mentioned Only)***

### **Items:**

* *Daily Planet* Newspaper
* *Metropolis Post*
* *Daily News*
* *Metropolis Times*
* Green Kryptonite
* Two 500 Megaton Nuclear Warhead Missiles
* Kryptonian Crystals ***(First Physical Appearance)***

### **Vehicles:**

* *Serenidee* ***(boat)***
* Air Force One
* Flying Newsroom
* Kryptonian Rocket

## Notes

* While the film was distributed by Warner Brothers, it was independently produced.
* One draft of the movie had Superman in New York, where he'd encounter Telly Savalas (star of the TV show *Kojak*). Superman would give Savalas a tap on the head and say Kojak's catchphrase: "Who loves ya, baby?". When Tom Mankiewicz came onboard, he removed the scene. *Kojak* ended up being cancelled over six months before the film was released.

## Trivia

* Perry White's famous "Don't call me Chief" line to Jimmy Olsen ends up becoming "Don't call me Sugar" after he asks Jimmy to get him a coffee black with no sugar.
* As a humorous jab to the tradition of Clark Kent ducking into a telephone booth to transform into Superman, Clark Kent pauses as he notices that a nearby telephone booth is too small and not secluded enough for him to change.

## Cast

File:Blackposter.png
* Marlon Brando as Jor-El
* Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor
* Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman
	+ Jeff East as young Clark Kent
	+ Lee Quigley as Baby Kal-El
	+ Aaron Smolinsky as Baby Clark Kent
* ***Ned Beatty*** as ***Otis***
* ***Jackie Cooper*** as ***Perry White***
* ***Glenn Ford*** as ***Jonathan Kent***
* Trevor Howard as the First Elder
* Margot Kidder as Lois Lane
* ***Valerie Perrine*** as ***Eve Teschmacher***
* Maria Schell as Vond-Ah
* Terence Stamp as General Zod
* ***Phyllis Thaxter*** as ***Martha Kent***
* Susannah York as Lara
* ***Marc McClure*** as Jimmy Olsen
* Jack O'Halloran as Non
* Sarah Douglas as Ursa
* ***Jeff East*** as Young Clark Kent
* Harry Andrews as 2nd Elder
* Diane Sherry as Lana Lang
* Brad Flock as Brad Wilson
* Michael Ensign as Newscaster
* Larry Hagman as Major
* John Ratzenberger as 1st Controller

## Production

In 1973, producer ***Ilya Salkind*** convinced his father ***Alexander*** to buy the rights to Superman. They hired Mario Puzo to pen a two-film script, and negotiated with Steven Spielberg to direct, though Alexander Salkind rejected him as *Jaws* went over budget. Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman signed on to play Jor-El and Lex Luthor respectively, and James Bond film director Guy Hamilton was hired to direct. However, Brando was faced with an obscenity lawsuit in Italy over *Last Tango in Paris*, and Hamilton was unable to shoot in England as he had violated his tax payments. The Salkinds hired Richard Donner to direct the film. Donner hired ***Tom Mankiewicz*** to polish the script, giving the opening in Krypton and Smallville a more serious feel and tone. Then in the Metropolis section, it becomes a "comic strip" with a modern, humorous feel.

Christopher Reeve was eventually cast as Superman, having initially failed to impress the Salkinds before bulking up. Brando meanwhile, despite spending less than two weeks on the shoot, and not even reading the script until then, earned $3.7 million up front, plus 11.75% of the gross profits from the film. The film was a success both critically and commercially, being released during the Christmas season of 1978; it did not have much competition, leading the producers to believe that this was one factor in the film's success.

## References

1. ↑ Official Warner site (legal title)
2. ↑ Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin. *Film History*, New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2010, P. 487
3. ↑ Thau, Michael (2001). *Taking Flight: The Development of Superman* (Documentary). DC Comics; Warner Home Video.

## Links

* Official Warner Brothers site
* Netflix listing
* CapedWonder.com

Template:Films