There was a time when superheroes were relegated to the B series. At a time when we weren’t used to seeing flying on the big screen, the arrival of the first Superman, the of Christopher ReeveIt was quite an event. We are talking about one of the most beloved characters for DC devotees and from a time when the cinema was beginning to be in need of blockbusters.
The expectations were very high and the film directed by Richard Donner did not disappoint. Not in vain, it was the second highest grossing of 1978, only behind a tape with which it had nothing to do: the phenomenon greasemade by John Travolta and the recently deceased Olivia Newton-John. It was also very well received by critics, earning three Oscar nominations. It didn’t win, but it did pick up a special award for its special effects. Its success marked the beginning of a saga that would have up to three sequels. Few could imagine then that the story of the ‘man of steel’ would continue to cause euphoria to this day.
It’s not a bird, nor a plane… it’s Superman
The origins of Superman have filled many comic pages and starred in the numerous reboots of the saga: little Kal-El is sent to Earth seconds before the total collapse of his planet, Krypton. Here he is taken in by the Kent family. Under the ‘alter ego’ of Clark Kent he moves to the fictional city of Metropolis -a mix between Toronto and Cleveland, but above all an analogy of New York- and starts working at the Daily Planet newspaper. There he meets Lois Lane, who will be his eternal love interest. In the film directed by Richard Donner, this character was masterfully played by actress Margot Kidder, who demonstrated her great chemistry with Reeve, completely mimicking the superhero. The actor was a complete unknown when she stole the role from the already established Sylvester Stallone. He is for many the best Superman in history, having been able to capture all the traits of Kent’s personality: strength, shyness, naivety and a sense of humor.
Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve in ‘Superman’ (1978) ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett C
For Reeves and Kidder, sequels were good: the couple repeated in each of the sequels -including the infamous Superman IV– forming a long-awaited tandem. For conspiracy buffs, they were both victims of the rumored ‘Superman curse’. Christopher suffered a horse riding accident that left him in a wheelchair until his death in 2004. Margot’s mental health problems were constant throughout her life. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and she had to be hospitalized several times. In 2018, she ended her life with an overdose of drugs and alcohol.
Superman turns 75.
Marlon Brando, a legend on the set of Superman
Neither Lois nor Clark were the main stars of the film. One name stood out in the cast above all others, that of the Oscar-winning Marlon Brando. A true legend of the golden age of Hollywood, the actor ended up in Richard Donner’s film, after a series of arduous negotiations. Brando had starred in such legendary films as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather either The last Tango in Paris and it was called to be the attraction that dragged the spectators to the theaters.
Marlon Brando
Brando was a pioneer by being the first renowned actor who agreed to participate in a superhero film. He did it for a stratospheric sum of money. To his base salary of 3.7 million dollars, an important percentage of the box office income was added, which meant that, given the success in theaters, the actor pocketed more than 14 million for “two or three weeks of work”, as he himself came to recognize. This and other aspects of his behavior during filming incensed Donner, who considered the actor’s salary an indecent sum disproportionate to his screen time. Brando’s final part in the film is limited to just over ten minutes of footage.
Marlon Brando is Jor-El in ‘Superman’ (1978)
The relationship between actor and director was not good. Marlon Brando was a veteran in the industry and tried to establish for himself the law of minimum effort. Few know that the emotional speech delivered by his character Jor-El with his son in his arms was strategically placed at different points on the set and read by the actor, after he refused to memorize his text.
Nicolas Cage, the Superman that never was
Marlon Brando’s remuneration for only 13 days of work also outraged the protagonist, Christopher Reeves, who in 1982 spoke in an unfriendly way about the actor on the David Letterman ‘show’. With those 14 million dollars, Brando became one of the interpreters who have received the most money for less work time, although he does not hold the record. Years later, Nicolas Cage would collect 20 million dollars for a film never shot. He did it under cover of a contract clause and it was precisely a Superman reboot project. Only the photos of a costume test came to light from that film. We could see Cage in the superhero costume, but we never got to see him flying over Metropolis under the direction of Tim Burton in this frustrated project.
Nicolas Cage cropper
The films of the DC Extended Universe did come to fruition. Since 2013 we have been able to see Henry Cavill as the last son of Krypton in projects like man of steel, Batman vs. Superman of 2016 and The Justice Leaguepremiered in 2017. We will have to wait a little longer to solve the mystery about Cavill’s continuity in the announced sequel.
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‘Superman’, when Marlon Brando pissed off Christopher Reeve