ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Today is the 79th anniversary of the first Superman comic, so here are a few trivia items about this fourth Superman movi . . . which might be worse than the one before it!
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~ According to Margot Kidder, she and Christopher Reeve did not get along during filming. Kidder states that Reeve's ego was inflated because he co-wrote the story.





Note from me: This just goes to show that some actors shouldn't try to be writers, the same way some writers shouldn't try to be actors.

~ Christopher Reeve publicly regretted his involvement in the film. He stated, "Superman IV was a catastrophe from start to finish. That failure was a huge blow to my career."

Note from me: Well, he certainly wasn't the only one who regretted this movie. Lots of folks bought tickets to this hot mess and then sat in movie theaters wondering what they might be missing on television that evening . . .

~ Richard Donner, who'd been fired from Superman II (1980), was offered the director's chair; he declined. Donner, at the time who was originally directing the first two Superman movies, was planning to make and produce at least four Superman films.

Note from me: Somewhere in a parallel universe, Richard Donner did exactly that, and they're probably all pretty damn good!

~ The failure of this film at the box office prompted The Cannon Group Inc., to cancel a planned production of "Spider-Man".

Note from me: I'm thinkin' that was a blessing in disguise.

~ The movie's original budget was 36 million dollars. Just before filming was to begin, The Cannon Group, Inc., which was experiencing financial problems, slashed the budget to seventeen million dollars. As a result, the filmmakers cut corners, by doing things like re-using special effects.

Note from me: Oh, right, that's ALWAYS a good idea. Remember how much we loved those FX reruns in the original Battlestar Galactic which made it hard to figure out which episode we were watching if we tuned in half through it!





~ The Cannon Group, Inc., thinking that they had a potential blockbuster on their hands, cut the two-hour-plus film down to a lean ninety minutes, so that theater owners could have more screenings per day, and potentially make more money that would eventually filter back to the studio.

Note from me: Wow, that was a shrewd business decision, I'm sure. Bartenders do this by watering down the booze and causing the customers to brag about how well they're holding their liquor. In this case, audiences breathed a sigh of relief when the movie ended earlier!

~ In the original script, Superman was supposed to rebuild the Great Wall of China at super speed, but when money problems emerged, they had Superman use his "magical rebuilding power" (which had been completely made up for the film). It required only that Director Sidney J. Furie run the camera in reverse, rather than a complicated super-speed scene.

Note from me: I'm sure nobody in the audience noticed this clever money-saving trick, because we've never seen film being run backwards, so this magical method for achieving the FX totally mystify us all!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Oh yeah Bud, this one was a stinker.

Although I consider it superior to that train wreck Superman III with Richard Pryor & Robert Vaughn.

Some of the concepts held promise — such as Superman taking it upon himself to ensure world peace and its ramifications.

Mariel Hemmingway is always dishy looking.

However, the execution of the movie fell flat.

Chris did say that Canon Productions had thirty films being made at that time and that Superman: TQfP did not receive any special considerations. Cutbacks in his budget and in all the departments hurt the movie.

But it all must start with a strong script. This one didn't have it.

I was sorry to read about Chris's inflated ego. I know, happens all the time in Hollyweird.

Jack O'Halloran who played the Kryptonian criminal Non in the first two SM films (and the best of the four movies with Chris) found Reeve difficult to get along with because of Reeve's ego.

At one point, Jack had Chris pushed up against a wall and had to be persuaded not to punch Chris's lights out by director Richard Donner.

And ole Jack could have done it.

Jack was 6' 5" tall and a former heavyweight boxing contender from 1966~1974 who was undefeated in 16 professionals fights.

Jack also claims that his father was Gambino crime family member Albert Anastasia.

So yeah, Jack's not a gent to cross.

Jack did say though years later that his heart went out to Chris after his tragic riding accident that left him paralyzed.

[Bud Brewster]

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I'm just guessin', but I think Chris' ego problems were solved by his tragic injury when he broke his back. He seems to have become a pretty great guy after that.

If I'm wrong, I hope nobody corrects me. I'd rather think of him as a courageous man who battled a horrible fate, right up until the end.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Smoke and Mirrors by Mark D. Wolf.

— falls flat because of severe budget restrictions and can't be mentioned in the same breath with the first three films.

I was part of a team at Cinema Research Corporation that proposed doing the flying scenes with stop-motion, rather like ILM would do in a few years with The Rocketeer. (1991).

Even that approach was too costly for this cut-rate bore trying to make off the earlier film's reputations.

Sidebar: Yep, this film is definitely the no frills flight. I would have to disagree with Mark's statement here. The first two Superman movies were terrific; after that it was downhill, starting with the third film. Unless he's referring only to the fact that the third movies' visual effects are superior to this fourth one. Haven't seen the third film in ages, so I can't really give any opinion to its visuals. As for the story, it was poor.

[Bud Brewster]

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I totally agree, Mike. The sad decline of the Superman films is disgrace to the brilliant original.

I own the DVD of the first film, and out of desperation I bought the DVD called the "Richard Donner Cut", hoping he had managed to restore the movie he wanted to release after he was removed from the project.

The "restored" version is interesting to watch — but the original magic is just not there. And that fact saddens me, and it prevents me from getting much joy from the "restored" sequel.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)