Random Bizarre Facts Most People Don't Know About Christopher Reeve's 'Superman' (14 items)

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  (#1) The Original Director Dropped Out Last Minute

  Guy Hamilton, the director of Goldfinger, was initially set to direct Superman but dropped out at the last minute. Somewhat panicked, producer Alexander Salkind called an up-and-coming Richard Donner, who described their conversation to The Hollywood Reporter: 

  I was hot. It was just a high point in my life, because I had done a lot of TV and then The Omen. I was getting a lot of calls and I had no idea where I was going. And then I got this call from Alexander Salkind.

  He said, "Do you know who I am?" and I said, "No. Why are you calling me?"

  He said, "I’ll get to that. I’m a producer. Did you ever see The Three Musketeers?" I said I did see it, and he said, "I produced that." 

  And I said, "The way I hear it, they tried to release a second picture without paying the actors."

  He said, "Well, that’s a long story. I’m making Superman. I don’t have a director and I’ll pay you a million dollars."

  Fun fact: Richard Donner was sitting on his toilet during the whole conversation.
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  (#10) Maybe Brando Was Eccentric, But He Kind Of Saved Tom Mankiewicz's Life

  Apparently, when a large group of cast and crew were out to dinner one night, there was a bit of a kerfuffle. As Donner tells it:

  [Brando] saved Tom Mankiewicz’s life, probably. We were having dinner with Mr. Brando, eating steaks, and there was this woman in our party and all of a sudden, she started yelling at Tom, that he didn't know what he was doing. She grabbed a knife [from] the plate and goes to [cut] Tom. Marlon reached over and grabbed her and the knife and calmed her down. It was a steak knife and, God forbid, it could have very easily been a tragedy. It was nuts.
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  (#7) Marlon Brando Wanted To Play Jor-El 'Like A Bagel'

  Donner wanted to offer the role of Jor-El, Superman's father, to Marlon Brando, but he was nervous about meeting the notoriously eccentric actor. Donner called a hot-shot Hollywood exec named Jay Kanter to get some tips on how to approach Brando. Kanter told him Brando was only interested in money. Unsatisfied with that, Donner called Francis Ford Coppola, who had directed Brando in Apocalypse Now. 

  Coppola told him, “He’s brilliant. He's got a brilliant mind. But he loves to talk. Keep him talking, and he'll talk himself out of any problem.”

  It seems Brando was able to talk himself into the role, though not without first taking a doughy detour. Donner said their initial conversation went like this:

  [Brando] said, "Why don't I play this like a bagel?" I was ready for him to say "a green suitcase [full of money]" and he said "bagel." He said, "How do we know what the people on Krypton looked like?" He had good logic. He said, "Maybe they looked like bagels up there in those days?" 

  I said, "Jeez, Marlon, let me tell you something." He’d just told us the story about a kid [and how smart he was] and I said, "It's 1939. There isn't a kid in the world that doesn't know what Jor-El looks like, and he looks like Marlon Brando." 

  And he looked at me and smiled [and said], "I talk too much, don't I?" He said, "Okay. Show me the wardrobe."
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  (#2) After Receiving The Script, Donner Got Baked

  In less than an hour, the script and costume for the movie were delivered to Donner's door. The filmmaker wasn't pleased with what he read. A lifelong fan of the comic character, Donner told The Hollywood Reporter that a movie based on the script he received would "destro[y] the legend of Superman," that it was "disparaging," and "just gratuitous action."

  Donner immediately called writer Tom Mankiewicz to discuss a rewrite. Mankiewicz was not interested in a comic book property, but Donner begged him to come over until he finally relented. In Donner's words, this is what happened next:

  I got a little stoned, smoked some weed, put on the Superman costume. I was in pretty good shape then. It was like elastic. And Tom pulled up, and I ran across the lawn and Tom turned and looked at me and ran back to his car.

  Tom says, "You’re crazy. Get the f*ck away from me!" 

  I said, "Tom, listen. You’ve got to read this." I gave him all my feelings about what we should do. I said, "The most important thing when you look at it is this: Make a love story. And prove a man can fly." 

  So he read it and he called me that night and said, "You know, there’s a lot we can do with this."
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  (#8) Brando Would Only Read His Lines From Cue Cards, And Once Off A Baby

  Different people have vastly different views on Brando's behavior on the Superman set. According to Terence Stamp, Brando never bothered to learn his lines. In the scene where Jor-El jettisons baby Kal-El (Superman) from the dying planet of Krypton, he was actually reading lines off the baby's diaper.

  Donner, however, had a much different view of this approach, and Brando's behavior in general:

  He and Chris did not meet at the beginning. But they did have a scene, because I remember how nervous Chris was, working with Brando. But Brando was nice to him. He was nice to everybody. They had dinner; he was Chris’s hero. He was a doll. He was totally present, on time. Not difficult, [though] we had to put his dialogue on other actors’ chests. He would say, "I don't want to read it like I've read it before a bunch of times. The first time I read it, it'll be honest." He made it work. He was the ultimate. He was Marlon Brando. He was Marlon F*cking Brando.
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  (#13) The Salkinds Continued To Cause Problems After Production Wrapped

  Donner was on a tight schedule from day one, and he fought with the producers constantly. The Salkinds went so far as to claim Donner was trying to abscond with their film, and they refused to release the negatives until the last second. By the time Warner Bros. got its hands on the movie, there was no time to hold test screenings.

  This put Donner in a situation where he didn't know what the final film looked like until the crowds did. "I didn’t know what I had until I saw it with an audience at the premiere," Donner said. "They loved it. I couldn’t believe it. It was thrilling."

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