![]() ![]() Scoffed at by his peers (including screen vet Trevor Howard), Jor-El is proven right all too soon. After the trial of supervillains Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and Non (Jack O'Halloran)-priorities, priorities-Jor-El announces that Krypton faces imminent destruction by catastrophic natural disaster. The first section of the film begins, portentously, on Krypton, home-world of Jor-El (Brando), Lara (Susannah York), and their infant son Kal-El. A boy delivers an ode to the Daily Planet, then the bombastic title sequence-with credits zooming through space toward the frame-swells to John Williams' potent "Superman March." Coming off the success of The Omen, Donner rejected the Salkinds' plan to nab a star and cast 25-year-old unknown Christopher Reeve as Superman.ĭonner's sprawling epic begins theatrically, with curtains opening on a sort of faux newsreel, circa 1938 (the year of Superman's comic-book debut). Made for $55 million by father-and-son producers Alexander and Illya Salkind ($4 million of which went to Marlon Brando for ten minutes of screen time), Superman went on to gross more than $300 million worldwide and spawn three sequels. But the comic-book movie took an undeniable evolutionary leap when the Man of Steel returned to the big screen in Richard Donner's 1978 film Superman.Ĭoming only one year after Star Wars and three years after Jaws, Superman was one of the first crop of blockbuster movies. The '60s saw a few feature films based on comic books, including Barbarella, Danger: Diabolik, and 1966's jokey superhero one-off Batman (again, a super-sized TV spinoff). Superman and the Mole-Men hit screens in 1951, but that first superhero feature was little more than a glorifed episode of the TV series The Adventures of Superman. "I'm here to fight for truth and justice and the American way."ĭuring the Golden Age of cinema, the serials regularly raided comic books. ![]()
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