Seeing Christopher Reeve “He Really Looks Like He’s Flying” for the first time as Superman made crew members cry

When director Richard Donner took over directing duties on the 1978 film Superman, the director’s goal was to make the audience believe that a man could actually fly. The first thing they had to do was choose the right actor, and after meeting several big Hollywood actors in Hollywood, including Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Burt ReynoldsAND Sylvester Stallone, Donner ended up casting Christopher Reevewhich was perfect.

Donner explained that many actors wanted the role and the studio gave him a list of all these names, and he told them, “Listen up. Your flying stuff is shit, and I have to make a man who flies. Even if you’ve seen Paul Newman or Robert Redford in that costume, no one is going to believe it. So, he went with more than one unknown actor to help the audience believe. It was the right and smart move.

At the time, visual effects were very limited. Obviously, they didn’t have the kind of technology that filmmakers have to work with today. But they managed to figure out how to do it. It took a while to actually find something that worked. Donner spoke about those flight tests saying:

“Every day for eight months, we did these test flights and watched the dailies. A wonderful man has come into our life, Zoran Perisic. In those days, a front projection unit was huge, weighing about a ton. And he had invented a front projection unit that weighed 35 or 40 pounds. It had a zoom on the projector and lens that photographed all parts of it. Then you can zoom and move. The camera was flexible. He came to me and we did all these tests and I said, ‘This is fucking amazing!’”

Donner ended up going to producer Alexander Salkind for some money so that Perisic could finish developing the system for the film. The director really wanted it and needed $25K to make it, but Salkind wouldn’t give him the money. Luckily, Warner Bros. stepped in and edited her. Donner went on to talk about the day they saw Superman “really looked like he was flying” saying:

“And the day we saw [Superman truly seem to] flying for the first time, there was dead silence. A couple of guys running the flight unit were crying, because it was so good.

What an exciting and thrilling moment it must have been for all who were there to witness it for the first time. He made the crew members cry and everyone was in awe. I first saw Superman as a kid on a small TV, but it was such a magical thing to see Superman fly, and I believed it.

Source: THR