1978's Superman Struggled To Find A Way To Make Christopher Reeve Fly
The story of bringing 1978's "Superman" to the big screen is basically the tale of director Richard Donner going against everything his producers were telling him. The movie itself helped establish the modern blockbuster, turning the idea of a comic book adaptation from a silly, campy affair to a serious concept in the public consciousness. But none of that would have happened without Donner.
Producer Alexander Salkind had a plan for Supes' big screen debut, but once Donner came onboard, he quickly switched things up to ensure the film treated its subject matter with some reverence. After he'd salvaged what he claimed was a truly awful script, the director set about making the best Superman movie he could, resulting in the now-beloved blockbuster we all know.
It wasn't easy. Donner considered filming "Superman" the toughest two years of his life, partly because he was tasked with shooting the first and second movie back-to-back, before being fired and replaced by Richard Lester. In fact, Donner described the process of shooting as "making an impossible film," a lot of which had to do with the aforementioned script issues. But there were practical challenges, too — especially when it came to the all-important flying scenes.
Treating Superman with respect
Richard Donner's take on the Man of Steel was, I think, the perfect Superman movie. Since "Superman," we've had all sorts of on-screen interpretations, including Zack Snyder's relatively dark take on the character, of which Donner made clear he was not a fan. As the "Superman" filmmaker, who passed away in 2021, saw it, a Superman movie should be hopeful, uplifting, and reinforce the idea of moral integrity. As he told Den of Geek, his goal was to not simply make something fun and entertaining, but to "make a good movie about this beloved character and treat him with our greatest respect."
The director, who had grown up with the Superman comics, knew that the Man of Steel meant something to an entire generation, and wanted the character's big screen debut to treat him accordingly. That meant being fastidious about every detail of the production, including the flying scenes. The tagline on all the "Superman" posters was "you'll believe a man can fly," but if Alexander Salkind had his way, that would have just been an outright lie.
As part of an extensive piece on the making of "Superman," Donner spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in 2016 about shooting convincing flying scenes, explaining that when he first came onboard, the existing flying tests looked "terrible." Thankfully, the director overhauled the whole approach, ensuring the film actually lived up to its tagline.
'This is 'f***ing great'
Richard Donner described the flying tests he saw, which involved actors "lying on a board on a process screen," as "corny" and like watching "bad television." And so, just like he'd done with the original script, Donner went back to basics, starting from scratch and dividing the shooting up among seven different units, one of which was dedicated solely to the flying scenes. Overseen by veteran filmmaker Andre De Toth, this unit used a special front projection unit invented by VFX artist Zoran Perisic. As Donner explained:
"[Perisic] had invented a front projection unit that weighed 35 or 40 pounds. It had a zoom on the projector and on the lens that was photographing all parts of this. So you could zoom and move. The camera was flexible. He came to me and we ran all these tests and I said, 'This is f—ing great!' So I went to Salkind and said, 'I want to do this,' and they wouldn't pay the $25,000 for him to finish developing it."
Thankfully, Warner Bros. agreed to fund the development, allowing Donner and his team to use the finished projection unit. As the director recalled it, "The day we saw [Superman truly seem to] fly for the first time, there was dead silence. A couple of guys that ran the flying unit were crying, because it was so good."
Thanks to Donner consistently going against his producers' decisions, the flying scenes actually managed to deliver on the film's famous tagline, which is just one of the many reasons "Superman" 1978 remains the best Superman movie.