Superman

Reiner worked closely with Goldman to adapt the book for the screenplay.

How about that? Well, Richard Lester and Christopher Reeve had already worked together on making Superman 2.

It makes sense that Robert

Redford was interested because I think he had had a working relationship with William Goldman because I believed that he is the Academy Award winning screenwriter for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Was this at

Pinewood Studios?

Yeah, most likely because he was also a PA on Octopussy and Superman.

Oh, he better work.

This decision actually led to the Screen Actors Guild requiring all future actors' contracts to include what has become known as the Salkind Clause, which stipulates that single productions cannot be split into multiple installments without prior contractual agreement.

The Salkinds would also attempt to make Superman and Superman 2 back to back.

That didn't quite work out.

There are previous episodes of this podcast that go into that, Episode 152 on Superman and Episode 231 on all of the Superman sequels, including the Richard Donner cut of Superman 2.

But back to Zemeckis and Gale, because having decided their film would indeed start in the future, they faced the monumental task of shaping the future of Hill Valley.

They decided early on it wasn't going to be Orwellian, and they also knew that they couldn't accurately predict the future.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Geoffrey Unsworth, he did "Cabaret," which we've talked about, and the first "Superman," Christopher Reeves' "Superman."

Hmm.

Okay.

"70s Superman," so that's really cool.

And then we also have a, an editor that we've talked about before, Ray Lovejoy.

He's done a few things, uh, notably I think "Aliens" people know him for.

But this would also mean...

So James Gunn would be directing Superman 1, Batman 1 and Superman 2.

Yeah.

I mean...

Not that it shouldn't matter, the director, but it shouldn't have to be only James Gunn can do this.

they should be able to bring in a talented director and story consult with the person

that's a really dangerous position to put yourselves in because look I mean James Gunn could get struck by lightning tomorrow like you know what I mean like and then what do you do I mean he as you said he should be Superman 1 he does it and look if he wants to do Superman 2 that's fine but like if you just give him Superman that's his baby and let him work on that and then he oversees everything else and you bring good people in around the board like there's so many really talented directors I mean James Good that Marvel did the exact same thing to that like you could have just had all the directors like Feige didn't step in and be like I'll direct this from the start or what's the Iron Man 1 director Jon Favreau like Jon Favreau doesn't direct every Marvel project yeah they had like people come in and now you've got like I mean super talented people have directed Marvel movies like really

talented like your Chloe Zhao has directed a Marvel movie which I maintain isn't that I like the Eternals like but also with James Gunn say with Marvel We've talked about it before, the risk that Marvel took hiring him for Guardians of the Galaxy after he'd done like...

Marvel Marvel Marvel vs Marvel

Superman 1978, an iconic movie that changed Hollywood forever.

A character, Superman, that we're going to discover changed comic books and superheroes forever and invented it.

But before we do any of that, Will, you're the guy that's got all the inside track on this movie, behind the scenes of this production, which I'm really excited to learn.

What can you tell us about this film?

Well Rob The first I spoke to you like I just met you Well Rob Yeah it was weird wasn't it Well Rob Well I wanted to sound superior So I thought the best way would be distancing myself from you emotionally Which kind of worked Okay Superman Now we've got to remember this is 1978 dollars Don't know what that means The budget for the time was $55 million.

And keep in mind, for 1978, that was the most expensive film ever made.

It's incredible.