I had fun digging into the development of Richard Donnerit’s the 1978 DC movie Superman. It’s one of my favorites and it sure has had such a crazy and fascinating road through its production and development. You can find some articles I’ve already written about these stories here.
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In this article, I cover a story where two of the producers of the film, Alexander AND Ilya Salkinds, I thought that at some point Donner and his team would steal the press of the film! In telling the story Donner said:
“Eventually I got a cut and we would take the print of the work to Los Angeles and do a studio screening, because we were editing in London. It was all organised, e.g [editor] Stuart Baird and I flew to Los Angeles, and when we get there, I get a call from [Warner Bros. executive] John Calley, who says: ‘We have a big problem. The Salkinds will not release the copy of the work because they say we are trying to steal it.’ And I say, ‘We can’t steal that. They have the negative there.’ He said, “Well, they say we can make a negative from the print of the job.” I said, ‘No, you can’t. This is physically impossible.’”
There was obviously a lot of paranoia surrounding the film, and it’s so wild that they had trouble sending a working print to the studio for executives to watch, but the Salkinds were apparently difficult to work with during production.
Donner went on to say that this delayed things and because of this there was no time for the studio to hold press screenings. He shared:
“The negative had to be shipped to Los Angeles and [Warners had to pay the Salkinds] all this money [to do so]. The negative had to be cut, timed, printed. AS [there was no time to hold] test screenings. Not one. I saw it in the lab, with no audience, no sound. The second I’ve seen with sound.
He then explained that he didn’t even know what kind of movie he actually made until he saw it at the premiere:
I didn’t know what I had until I saw it with an audience at the premiere. They loved it. I could not believe it. He was thrilling.
Damnation! What a seriously intense production that must have been! Until the premiere of the film!
Source: THR
by Joey Paur
Source: Geek Tyrant
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
