Superman '78 (2021)

[Silver Nemesis]

This is a very interesting thought. And it's fairly plausible that he would've accepted the role had it been offered. Actors thrive on variety and how many villains had Nimoy played? Plus, the Superman series had some prestige to them from the standpoint that Terrence Stamp, Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman had played roles of considerable importance in those movies as villains. I think the Brando fanboy in Nimoy might've been sold just on the (tangential by that point) Brando connection. At the very least, I think he would've entertained the idea of playing Brainiac.

Of all the fan-casting ideas I've ever seen, this is probably the most believable.

I like to think he'd have been up for it. If the filmmakers had gone with the supercomputer approach, like what we saw in the finished film, then Nimoy might only have been required to voice Brainiac. If he was willing to voice Galvatron in the Transformers film, then I reckon he'd have been up for voicing Brainiac too. He was a master at conveying the mechanical logic of an intellect unclouded by emotion, and that cold intelligence is precisely what a good Brainiac performance requires.

Would they have gone for the classic green skin look, or the silver 'Rebirth' design? Presumably the former, since the 'Rebirth' storyline didn't begin publication until Action Comics Vol 1 #544 (June 1983). Then again, DC might have granted the filmmakers early access to that story so they could synergise the movie's depiction of Brainiac with what was happening in the comics. His Bronze Age redesign was probably better suited to eighties cinema than his more traditional look.

Here's my idea for how you could adapt Superman III to include Brainiac. Firstly, the film would require a new prologue. Superman I and II both had prologues taking place on Krypton, so I'd have included a similar sequence for Superman III. During this scene, we'd be introduced to Brainiac; possibly as a computer voiced by Nimoy, or else by having Nimoy appear in the flesh in the character's green skinned Coluan form. In the Rebirth storyline Brainiac was able to convert his essence into incorporeal energy and travel through space propelled by solar winds.

This is how I would explain him surviving Krypton's destruction in Superman III. His body is destroyed, but his intellect survives as pure energy drifting through space. Then when Gus Gorman uses the appropriately named Vulcan satellite to probe Krypton's solar system...

...the scan detects Brainiac lurking in the vicinity. Brainiac travels along the satellite's laser beam in the form of pure energy to reach Earth. He hides inside the Vulcan computer system while telepathically influencing Gorman, similar to how the Post-Crisis Brainiac influenced Milton Fine in 'The Amazing Brainiac' (Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #438, March 1988). There's no real explanation in the finished film for why Gus suddenly wants to build a supercomputer, but in this version it would be explained that Brainiac tricks him into doing it in order to construct a new physical form for himself. A form that will grant him dominion over the Earth's computer networks.

In this version of the film, the finished supercomputer would speak with Nimoy's voice. It initially obeys Webster's commands and pretends to be his servant, but eventually kills him before seizing control of all global computer systems. It would then be Brainiac, not Webster, that launches all the missiles and Kryptonite lasers at Superman. Gus realises he's been manipulated and tries reasoning with Brainiac, but to no avail. Eventually he tries escaping from inside the supercomputer, whereupon Brainiac takes possession of his body. This would basically be the same as the robot scene from the finished film, only it would be Gus that gets possessed instead of Vera.

The robot/cyborg would now have Brainiac's glowing red disks on his forehead and would speak with Nimoy's voice, and it would be in this form that he fights Superman during the finale. Superman defeats him using the acid, saves Gus, and hurls the remnants of the supercomputer (containing Brainiac's consciousness) into deep space. The end.

I think this approach would have improved the film without altering it too drastically, and it would have delivered a decent big screen depiction of Brainiac courtesy of Nimoy. All the other subplots, such as the return to Smallville, the romance with Lana, and the splitting of Superman by the synthetic Kryptonite, could remain intact.

Nimoy would have been a good choice. Absolutely. In addition, Nimoy would have provided a box office draw from sci fi and/or Trek side of fans who might not have interest in Superman, but would have been curious to see Nimoy as a antagonist. Certainly so in that stage of his career.

Right. There were few actors at the time more synonymous with the sci-fi genre, or more respected by fans, than Nimoy. The first two Superman films featured several veteran actors in supporting roles, and Superman III really needed someone with Nimoy's gravitas to offset the silliness of the villains.

Being that I am not a Trekkie/Trekker, '80's Nimoy is always Galvatron, and his appearance in the Bangles "Going down to Liverpool" music video for me. 

Ah, Transformers: The Movie. I don't care for the modern Transformers films, but I'll always love the original G1 series and 1986 movie. Some of my earliest memories from the late eighties are of playing with Transformers toys, watching the cartoon show and looking at the artwork in my big brother's Transformers comics. Revisiting it now, the 1986 movie is so much better than any of the modern Transformers flicks. It's got one of the best soundtracks ever, wall to wall action and an amazing voice cast that includes Leonard Nimoy, Orson Welles, Robert Stack, Judd Nelson, Scatman Crothers and Eric Idle. Nimoy's vocal performance imbued Galvatron with a gravelly ruthlessness that perfectly matched his awesome character design. For me, Galvatron>Megatron.

Apparently Nimoy also performed some of Unicron's lines, since Orson Welles passed away before he could finish recording all of his dialogue. I can't tell which lines are Welles and which Nimoy in the finished film, which is a testament to what a great job Nimoy did.

An accurate summation, and for that reason I see both of these comics being successful if they continue this trend. I think both feel like they could exist as respective continuations, but think it's harder to replicate the world and atmosphere of Burton in comic form. Superman 78's artwork is spot on, and even though I'm usually not keen about film panels being recreated verbatim, I'll give it a pass here. It lent a degree of authenticity and nostalgic emotion, the latter of which the Reeveverse leans on. Of the two I ultimately prefer the approach of '89, but '78 seems like it'll be an entertaining and leisurely read.

So far, I'd say the Superman '78 comic feels like a truer addition to the Donnerverse canon than anything from the Singerverse timeline (Superman Returns, Crisis on Infinite Earths). It'll be interesting to see if this and the Batman '89 series get extended if they sell well. Based on the reviews and comments I've seen online, the reaction to both comics seems very positive.

[thecolorsblend]

Would they have gone for the classic green skin look, or the silver 'Rebirth' design? Presumably the former, since the 'Rebirth' storyline didn't begin publication until Action Comics Vol 1 #544 (June 1983). Then again, DC might have granted the filmmakers early access to that story so they could synergise the movie's depiction of Brainiac with what was happening in the comics. His Bronze Age redesign was probably better suited to eighties cinema than his more traditional look.

Yes, let's talk about that. The people in the know have good reasons for not telling the whole story.

Even so, I've been nursing a conspiracy theory for a while now that basically says the redesigned Brainiac had a lot to do with Superman III. DC and the Salkinds had many interactions during the production of those movies. It's no stretch to think that Ilya Salkind would've shared his vision of a movie featuring (among other things) Brainiac... which was the original plan at the time, as you know.

So, in an effort to create something a bit more grounded and credible for film, I wouldn't be too shocked if DC didn't cook up the redesigned Brainiac as a response/synergy with Superman III. At a minimum, I think DC's agenda would've been to warm fans up to the idea of a redesigned Brainiac. But it might actually be that the new Brainiac design is more or less what would've been seen in the movie.

Either way, I've long assumed that the Brainiac redesign was due to Salkind's original plan of including him in Superman III.

[The Joker]

Here's my idea for how you could adapt Superman III to include Brainiac. Firstly, the film would require a new prologue. Superman I and II both had prologues taking place on Krypton, so I'd have included a similar sequence for Superman III. During this scene, we'd be introduced to Brainiac; possibly as a computer voiced by Nimoy, or else by having Nimoy appear in the flesh in the character's green skinned Coluan form. In the Rebirth storyline Brainiac was able to convert his essence into incorporeal energy and travel through space propelled by solar winds.

This is how I would explain him surviving Krypton's destruction in Superman III. His body is destroyed, but his intellect survives as pure energy drifting through space. Then when Gus Gorman uses the appropriately named Vulcan satellite to probe Krypton's solar system...

...the scan detects Brainiac lurking in the vicinity. Brainiac travels along the satellite's laser beam in the form of pure energy to reach Earth. He hides inside the Vulcan computer system while telepathically influencing Gorman, similar to how the Post-Crisis Brainiac influenced Milton Fine in 'The Amazing Brainiac' (Adventures of Superman Vol 1 #438, March 1988). There's no real explanation in the finished film for why Gus suddenly wants to build a supercomputer, but in this version it would be explained that Brainiac tricks him into doing it in order to construct a new physical form for himself. A form that will grant him dominion over the Earth's computer networks.

In this version of the film, the finished supercomputer would speak with Nimoy's voice. It initially obeys Webster's commands and pretends to be his servant, but eventually kills him before seizing control of all global computer systems. It would then be Brainiac, not Webster, that launches all the missiles and Kryptonite lasers at Superman. Gus realises he's been manipulated and tries reasoning with Brainiac, but to no avail. Eventually he tries escaping from inside the supercomputer, whereupon Brainiac takes possession of his body. This would basically be the same as the robot scene from the finished film, only it would be Gus that gets possessed instead of Vera.

The robot/cyborg would now have Brainiac's glowing red disks on his forehead and would speak with Nimoy's voice, and it would be in this form that he fights Superman during the finale. Superman defeats him using the acid, saves Gus, and hurls the remnants of the supercomputer (containing Brainiac's consciousness) into deep space. The end.

I think this approach would have improved the film without altering it too drastically, and it would have delivered a decent big screen depiction of Brainiac courtesy of Nimoy. All the other subplots, such as the return to Smallville, the romance with Lana, and the splitting of Superman by the synthetic Kryptonite, could remain intact.

Now that's one hell of a improved version of Superman III! Kudos to you, Silver. Very well done. Your approach of it not being what you can get rid of, but what you can keep, works for me.

The Bronze Age redesign of Brainiac is something I have a lot of fondness for. Mainly due to this particular version of Brainiac being the very first incarnation of any Brainiac I was aware of as a kid, and I also distinctly remember having the Brainiac action figure that was apart of the Kenner Super Powers toy line.



In addition, and I've probably mentioned this before, but as a kid, I remember initially thinking the "Super Computer" featured in Superman III, and it's later take over of the female assistant, actually was a cinematic version of Brainiac. Just never outright verbally stated in the film. As even as a young kid, I was all too aware that the cinematic adaptations of comic book characters would often times differentiate from their comic book counterparts depictions. Course, this wasn't the case, but I guess you can say first impressions can be lasting impressions, cause it's something that I never forgot about.

Speaking of the comics, even during the Post-Crisis era, Brainiac's skull ship was always a nice little call back to the Bronze Age design. As I always felt there was a underlining recognition/call back there. For the most part, the green skinned alien Coluan Brainiac typically takes precedence in comic book depictions of Brainiac, but whenever a unreservedly appearance of the Bronze Age redesigned Brainiac happens (Convergence sticks out in my mind), it's like, "There's my boy."

[Silver Nemesis]

Yes, let's talk about that. The people in the know have good reasons for not telling the whole story.

Even so, I've been nursing a conspiracy theory for a while now that basically says the redesigned Brainiac had a lot to do with Superman III. DC and the Salkinds had many interactions during the production of those movies. It's no stretch to think that Ilya Salkind would've shared his vision of a movie featuring (among other things) Brainiac... which was the original plan at the time, as you know.

So, in an effort to create something a bit more grounded and credible for film, I wouldn't be too shocked if DC didn't cook up the redesigned Brainiac as a response/synergy with Superman III. At a minimum, I think DC's agenda would've been to warm fans up to the idea of a redesigned Brainiac. But it might actually be that the new Brainiac design is more or less what would've been seen in the movie.

Either way, I've long assumed that the Brainiac redesign was due to Salkind's original plan of including him in Superman III.

I think you're on to something with this theory, colors. Brainiac's 1983 look was clearly informed by the contemporaneous robot and armour designs appearing in the sci-fi films and TV shows of that era. It's easy to imagine someone like Stan Winston or Phil Tippett translating it into live action. Further evidence of collaboration between the publisher and studio can be seen in the way Clark and Lana's relationship evolved in 1983. In the following scene from 'Within These Hands--Power!' (Action Comics V1 #543, May 1983) – which we cited in the comic influences thread – Clark realises that Lana is more interested in his mild civilian alter ego than his super-powered persona.

This was a departure from how their relationship had been depicted in earlier comics, where Lana was strongly attracted to Superboy, but it was exactly how their relationship was portrayed in Superman III. Either this is one hell of a coincidence, or the writers of the movie and the comic had been swapping notes.

This prompts the question of whether Lex Luthor's Warsuit, which debuted in the same issue as Brainiac's 'Rebirth' design, might also have been created with the movies in mind. It would have been interesting to see Hackman don similar armour to trade punches with Reeve.

The Bronze Age redesign of Brainiac is something I have a lot of fondness for. Mainly due to this particular version of Brainiac being the very first incarnation of any Brainiac I was aware of as a kid, and I also distinctly remember having the Brainiac action figure that was apart of the Kenner Super Powers toy line.

This is a good example of how DC was pushing the redesigned Brainiac in other media. This toy is based on the version of the character from the SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984), which was in turn based on the Bronze Age 'Rebirth' design, complete with silver robotic body and skull-shaped spaceship.

If a Donnerverse Brainiac had appeared after 1983, then he almost certainly would have sported this Bronze Age look. I can't believe they'd have had him look like this in the comics, TV shows and toys, only to then not use this design in the movies as well.

In addition, and I've probably mentioned this before, but as a kid, I remember initially thinking the "Super Computer" featured in Superman III, and it's later take over of the female assistant, actually was a cinematic version of Brainiac. Just never outright verbally stated in the film. As even as a young kid, I was all too aware that the cinematic adaptations of comic book characters would often times differentiate from their comic book counterparts depictions. Course, this wasn't the case, but I guess you can say first impressions can be lasting impressions, cause it's something that I never forgot about.

I always regarded the supercomputer as an ersatz Brainiac too. And I thought of the evil Superman as being the Donnerverse Bizarro, though Nuclear Man is arguably better suited to that description.

Speaking of the comics, even during the Post-Crisis era, Brainiac's skull ship was always a nice little call back to the Bronze Age design. As I always felt there was a underlining recognition/call back there. For the most part, the green skinned alien Coluan Brainiac typically takes precedence in comic book depictions of Brainiac, but whenever a unreservedly appearance of the Bronze Age redesigned Brainiac happens (Convergence sticks out in my mind), it's like, "There's my boy."

For me, the highlight of the first issue of Superman '78 was seeing Reeve fight that version of the character, even though in this context it's merely a scout controlled by the real Brainiac.

Did anyone else think the panel showing Superman attacking Brainiac with his heat vision was similar to the Superman III poster, where he's shown attacking the supercomputer in a similar way?

Conversations like this bring home how frustrating Superman III is. I have a nostalgic affection for the film as it exists, but it could so easily have been a much better film. It's not like Superman IV, where the depleted budget crippled the entire project. Superman III had a sizeable budget of $39 million (to put that into context, Return of the Jedi's budget is reported to have been somewhere between $32 million and $42 million), and this is reflected in the high quality production values. Unlike Superman IV, the sets and special effects in Superman III are all top notch. It was poor creative decisions that stopped the film from reaching its potential, not lack of money.

Imagine how good Superman III might have been if the filmmakers had simply:

•   Connected the supercomputer storyline to Brainiac, as originally intended
•   Toned down the slapstick
•   Replaced Ross Webster with Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor (this would obviously entail the Salkinds winning back Hackman's trust)

That's all they needed to do. Everything else could remain the same. Keep the return to Smallville storyline, the romance between Clark and O'Toole's Lana, the chemical plant fire sequence, the synthetic Kryptonite subplot, the evil Superman subplot, the junk yard fight, and the finale with the canyon and the missiles. If they'd just toned down the humour and added Brainiac and Hackman's Luthor, then Superman III might have been one of the greatest CBMs ever.

[thecolorsblend]

Ilya Salkind has said that Superman III has two great weaknesses.

The first is Ross Webster as portrayed by Robert Vaughn. I have no particular criticism of Webster as a character or of Vaughn's portrayal of him. But Salkind has plenty to say about Vaughn. Specifically, he never liked Vaugh in the role. He wanted Frank Langella. But Lester insisted on Vaugh and Salkind says he got overruled. I tend to take him at his word here since he is literally the only person I've ever seen criticize Vaugh in the movie.

The second is Richard Pryor, full-stop. Salkind says he wasn't necessarily opposed to getting a big star for the movie (as Pryor was in those glory days). But he says the movie's narrative depends on Pryor far too much. Pryor understandably wanted a certain amount of screen time as a condition for doing the movie. The amount of screen time Pryor wanted necessitated eliminating Mxy and Brainiac from the movie. WB ultimately nixed the Supergirl component because they wanted her for a solo movie.

In particular, WB's collective balls shriveled up when they saw how bonkers Salkind's Superman III treatment was: Brainiac, Supergirl, Mxy, Lana Lang, Jimmy Olsen, time travel, etc. I can understand them wanting to scale things back a little bit so they didn't go broke.

Still, removing Brainiac from the movie rubbed Salkind the wrong way. He says that Superman's turn to the dark side dimly lit side probably wasn't very obvious to younger viewers. Salkind wanted Brainiac to be able to push a button or something that turns Superman evil into a complete jerk. As it stands, it's not clear enough (for Salkind's taste) that Superman was poisoned by defective synthetic Kryptonite rather than being controlled by Brainiac's machinations.

So, basically what it comes down to is that Lester, Pryor and WB all flexing their influence rly hampered what Salkind wanted Superman III to be. After all that, I can understand why Salkind wanted to sell off the Superman movie rights. He'd gotten steamrolled by three different parties and had probably had his fill of drama after all that.

(But I maintain that the Superboy TV show is the ultimate proof that Ilya truly does understand everything that makes this character work)

[The Dark Knight]

Conversations like this bring home how frustrating Superman III is. I have a nostalgic affection for the film as it exists, but it could so easily have been a much better film. It's not like Superman IV, where the depleted budget crippled the entire project. Superman III had a sizeable budget of $39 million (to put that into context, Return of the Jedi's budget is reported to have been somewhere between $32 million and $42 million), and this is reflected in the high quality production values. Unlike Superman IV, the sets and special effects in Superman III are all top notch. It was poor creative decisions that stopped the film from reaching its potential, not lack of money.

Imagine how good Superman III might have been if the filmmakers had simply:

•   Connected the supercomputer storyline to Brainiac, as originally intended
•   Toned down the slapstick
•   Replaced Ross Webster with Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor (this would obviously entail the Salkinds winning back Hackman's trust)

That's all they needed to do. Everything else could remain the same. Keep the return to Smallville storyline, the romance between Clark and O'Toole's Lana, the chemical plant fire sequence, the synthetic Kryptonite subplot, the evil Superman subplot, the junk yard fight, and the finale with the canyon and the missiles. If they'd just toned down the humour and added Brainiac and Hackman's Luthor, then Superman III might have been one of the greatest CBMs ever.

This is all true. The makings of a good movie are all there, and instead it was bungled into a frustrating mess of wasted potential that I just cannot bring myself to enjoy. Even just removing Pryor would've made a big difference. I like STM and also SII, which is an unpopular thing to say around here. But that's the end of the road for me. I can't label the Reeveverse definitive because of where it led. Superman 78 is depicting what I think Superman 3 should've been, which goes to show how important the scripting process is.

[Kamdan]

Conversations like this bring home how frustrating Superman III is. I have a nostalgic affection for the film as it exists, but it could so easily have been a much better film. It's not like Superman IV, where the depleted budget crippled the entire project. Superman III had a sizeable budget of $39 million (to put that into context, Return of the Jedi's budget is reported to have been somewhere between $32 million and $42 million), and this is reflected in the high quality production values.

The fallacy in comparing Superman III's budget to Return of the Jedi is all in the details.

The Salkinds weren't George Lucas who created his own special effects company's to handle the extensive amount of visual effects. The Salkinds had to hire veteran special effects technicians to pull off very difficult and complicated effects work. This was a detail Cannon grossly overlooked when they decided to slash the budget of IV to pay for Masters of the Universe after they used up the half of the budget Mattel put up for the movie.

Lucas didn't have to deal with multimillion dollar salaries for the actors either. Reeve got paid $1 million after at first being reluctant to return after finding out that Pryor was getting 5 times that amount! There was serious talk that Tony Danza was set to play Superman until the Salkinds finally relented and was paid somewhat comparable to his co-star. The highest actor's salary on Jedi was Harrison Ford at $500,000, mainly because he didn't sign a contract for three movies like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher did. Solo was placed in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back sorely for that reason in case they couldn't get Ford to reprise his role.

The biggest issue is that Superman I & II had a combined budget of over $100 million, which was SUBSTANTIAL at the time. They couldn't continue to make movies at that price and still obtain a profit. The Salkinds were independent producers that bought an option to make Superman films from Warners, who at first only were distributing the first two films in North America. Once they saw how good Richard Donner was handling the material, which they initially saw as a gigantic flop with their frivolous spending of multimillion dollar salaries for Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, they put more into the project and apparently tried to buy out the Salkinds' interest in the series, which made Donner cocky enough to say to the press after the first film's release "if they're on it, I'm not on it." Of course, the Salkinds knew they had another hit film on their hands and they fired Donner for that behavior. Tom Mankiewicz was convinced that Donner would have been forced to finish the sequel to help recuperate their initial investment.

The tremendous success of the first film led them to confidently state that Superman III was coming soon at the end of II. While the initial Ilya Salkind treatment was more broader in scope to the final film, that did not accommodate with their attempt at making a film half the budget of the first two. It was difficult enough to convincing make a man fly and it would have been more challenging to make a character like Mxyzptlk believable (and tolerable).

It's too easy for us fans to say that everything would have been better if Superman III followed the comics more closely and used characters like Brainiac, but the time period which it was made in has to be taken into consideration. Of course the Ross Webster character makes more sense if it was Lex Luthor, but that's only because we all know how well that conglomerate interpretation of the character works now or how Brainiaic was responsible for Krypton's destruction. These were all characteristics that came after the release of the movie and definitely out of grasp of the writers of the films that had to consult with DC just to know who all existed in the Superman universe.

[Paul (ral)]

This was a detail Cannon grossly overlooked when they decided to slash the budget of IV to pay for Masters of the Universe after they used up the half of the budget Mattel put up for the movie.

This is actually one of those urban legends. Cannon didn't give half the S4 budget to MotU.

[Kamdan]

This is actually one of those urban legends. Cannon didn't give half the S4 budget to MotU.

Do you know who said this was not the case? The details of this "urban legend" appeared to make sense as everyone who signed back onto Superman IV was under the impression that this was going to have a budget comparable to the previous films. I know Reeve only did it so Street Smart could get made but I seriously doubt he thought a micro-sized budget for a Superman could be pulled off. He knew what happened when corners were cut.

The detail about Mattel and Cannon agreeing to split the budget for the movie and Cannon trying to stiff them with paying for the rest of it creates the situation of them economizing their biggest production at the time to fulfill their agreement. Whatever they put in apparently wasn't enough due to the director of Masters having to pay for the final battle between He-Man and Skeletor himself. I believe one of the heads of Cannon admitted regret that they didn't use all of their resources and money on one film and instead were trying to maximize profits by making several movies that suffered from their lack of funds.

[Silver Nemesis]

Ilya Salkind has said that Superman III has two great weaknesses.

The first is Ross Webster as portrayed by Robert Vaughn. I have no particular criticism of Webster as a character or of Vaughn's portrayal of him. But Salkind has plenty to say about Vaughn. Specifically, he never liked Vaugh in the role. He wanted Frank Langella. But Lester insisted on Vaugh and Salkind says he got overruled. I tend to take him at his word here since he is literally the only person I've ever seen criticize Vaugh in the movie.

The second is Richard Pryor, full-stop. Salkind says he wasn't necessarily opposed to getting a big star for the movie (as Pryor was in those glory days). But he says the movie's narrative depends on Pryor far too much. Pryor understandably wanted a certain amount of screen time as a condition for doing the movie. The amount of screen time Pryor wanted necessitated eliminating Mxy and Brainiac from the movie. WB ultimately nixed the Supergirl component because they wanted her for a solo movie.

In particular, WB's collective balls shriveled up when they saw how bonkers Salkind's Superman III treatment was: Brainiac, Supergirl, Mxy, Lana Lang, Jimmy Olsen, time travel, etc. I can understand them wanting to scale things back a little bit so they didn't go broke.

Still, removing Brainiac from the movie rubbed Salkind the wrong way. He says that Superman's turn to the dark side dimly lit side probably wasn't very obvious to younger viewers. Salkind wanted Brainiac to be able to push a button or something that turns Superman evil into a complete jerk. As it stands, it's not clear enough (for Salkind's taste) that Superman was poisoned by defective synthetic Kryptonite rather than being controlled by Brainiac's machinations.

So, basically what it comes down to is that Lester, Pryor and WB all flexing their influence rly hampered what Salkind wanted Superman III to be. After all that, I can understand why Salkind wanted to sell off the Superman movie rights. He'd gotten steamrolled by three different parties and had probably had his fill of drama after all that.

(But I maintain that the Superboy TV show is the ultimate proof that Ilya truly does understand everything that makes this character work)

I've modified my opinion of Ilya in light of some of your posts. I've noticed that when I see him interviewed about the Superman movies, he often has some of the trade paperback collections displayed in the background. One of the books I've spotted in his collection is Showcase Presents Superman Vol 1, which includes, among many other classic comics, Brainiac's debut story: 'The Super-Duel in Space' (Action Comics Vol 1 #242, July 1958). I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he purchased a copy of this new Superman '78 series once it's complete. It does sound as though his idea for Superman III was a bit overstuffed, but at least he was using the comics as a starting point.

I wonder, would Ilya's concept for Superman III have worked better if it was divided across two films like Superman I and II? Superman III could have introduced Brainiac, but refrained from using him as the main villain in favour of focusing on Supergirl and Mister Mxyzptlk. Then Superman IV could have focused on Supergirl and Superman joining forces to defeat Brainiac and liberate Kandor.

This is all true. The makings of a good movie are all there, and instead it was bungled into a frustrating mess of wasted potential that I just cannot bring myself to enjoy. Even just removing Pryor would've made a big difference. I like STM and also SII, which is an unpopular thing to say around here. But that's the end of the road for me. I can't label the Reeveverse definitive because of where it led. Superman 78 is depicting what I think Superman 3 should've been, which goes to show how important the scripting process is.

I love Superman II. I've heard all the criticisms, but I still think it's a terrific sequel. It established the superhero sequel trope of having the hero quit to pursue a normal life, only to then realise his mistake and return in time to redeem it – a trope whereby the hero's values and willpower are tested more than his physical prowess. You can see the influence of this in Raimi's Spider-Man 2 and Nolan's TDK trilogy. Superman II also influenced Geoff Johns and Richard Donner's 'Last Son' storyline in the comics, as well as Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, the Lord Nor storyline in Lois & Clark, and several episodes of Smallville. If it wasn't for Superman II General Zod would not have been elevated to the A-list villain status he now occupies, but would instead be just another Phantom Zone criminal interchangeable with Jax-Ur, Nam-Ek and the rest (at least far as the general public perceives them).

The Metropolis fight still impresses me, if only because of its technical ingenuity. The production team utilised a variety of different techniques ranging from miniatures, to wirework, to pyrotechnics, to rear projection and other optical effects, so that each shot feels like its own individual magic trick. This was back when special effects were still special, and the effects in Superman II, while dated and occasionally unconvincing, are still more entertaining to me than any of the glossy CG effects you'd find in a modern MCU film.

I get why others might not like Superman II, but for me it's the third best superhero movie of the eighties (after RoboCop and Batman 89).

The fallacy in comparing Superman III's budget to Return of the Jedi is all in the details.

The Salkinds weren't George Lucas who created his own special effects company's to handle the extensive amount of visual effects. The Salkinds had to hire veteran special effects technicians to pull off very difficult and complicated effects work. This was a detail Cannon grossly overlooked when they decided to slash the budget of IV to pay for Masters of the Universe after they used up the half of the budget Mattel put up for the movie.

Lucas didn't have to deal with multimillion dollar salaries for the actors either. Reeve got paid $1 million after at first being reluctant to return after finding out that Pryor was getting 5 times that amount! There was serious talk that Tony Danza was set to play Superman until the Salkinds finally relented and was paid somewhat comparable to his co-star. The highest actor's salary on Jedi was Harrison Ford at $500,000, mainly because he didn't sign a contract for three movies like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher did. Solo was placed in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back sorely for that reason in case they couldn't get Ford to reprise his role.

The biggest issue is that Superman I & II had a combined budget of over $100 million, which was SUBSTANTIAL at the time. They couldn't continue to make movies at that price and still obtain a profit. The Salkinds were independent producers that bought an option to make Superman films from Warners, who at first only were distributing the first two films in North America. Once they saw how good Richard Donner was handling the material, which they initially saw as a gigantic flop with their frivolous spending of multimillion dollar salaries for Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, they put more into the project and apparently tried to buy out the Salkinds' interest in the series, which made Donner cocky enough to say to the press after the first film's release "if they're on it, I'm not on it." Of course, the Salkinds knew they had another hit film on their hands and they fired Donner for that behavior. Tom Mankiewicz was convinced that Donner would have been forced to finish the sequel to help recuperate their initial investment.

The tremendous success of the first film led them to confidently state that Superman III was coming soon at the end of II. While the initial Ilya Salkind treatment was more broader in scope to the final film, that did not accommodate with their attempt at making a film half the budget of the first two.

In citing Return of the Jedi I was attempting to contextualise Superman III's budget in relation to those of other blockbuster films released that same year. For further context, Krull had a production budget of $27-30 million; Never Say Never Again had a production budget of $37 million; Octopussy had a production budget of $27.5 million; The Right Stuff had a production budget of $27 million; and most sources seem to agree that ROTJ's production budget was $32.5 million. Those were all regarded as big budget effects-heavy movies in 1983, and yet Superman III's budget was larger than any of them. Whether that money was efficiently used or not doesn't change the fact that it was a substantial budget for the time. In fact it was the most expensive movie of 1983 (unless the claims of ROTJ having a $42.7 million budget are accurate).

Granted, Superman III's budget wasn't as big as the previous two films. But it didn't need to be. Superman: The Movie's budget was exceptionally large, in part due to all the new special effects techniques that had to be experimented with and developed (e.g. the Zoptic process). Superman: The Movie is still one of the top hundred most expensive movies ever made when adjusted for inflation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_films#Most_expensive_films_(adjusted_for_inflation)). Not every Superman film needs to cost that much.

And in the case of Superman II, the budget includes the costs of the 1979 reshoots, where Lester had to remake large portions of the movie in order to satisfy DGA regulations and qualify for his screen credit. Even utilising pre-existing sets and costumes, those reshoots would still have required a substantial additional investment on top of the film's initial costs (see the inflated budget of Solo for a more recent example of something similar). The makers of Superman III didn't need to invent new effects techniques like they did on the first film, and they didn't need to reshoot big chunks of the movie like they did on the second. Nor did they need to pay Brando's exorbitant salary. I maintain that the $39 million budget was perfectly adequate for the time.

By contrast, Superman IV's paltry $17 million budget resulted in poor quality production values that are distractingly bad. I've never thought the production values in Superman III were bad. In fact I think the wirework, models and optical effects are probably the most polished of the four Reeve movies, though others may disagree with me on that. With Superman III it's the script and bad ideas that detract from my enjoyment, not the production values. And if Ilya Salkind's initial concept is anything to go by, then many of those pitfalls could easily have been avoided had wiser minds prevailed during the development stage. That's the point I was attempting to make when I referenced their budgets.

It was difficult enough to convincing make a man fly and it would have been more challenging to make a character like Mxyzptlk believable (and tolerable).

I imagine the Donnerverse Mxyzptlk as a more mischievous version of Dudley Moore's character from Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). I don't think he would have been too difficult to adapt from a technical or budgetary standpoint. Making him tolerable would have been tricky, since the character is meant to be annoying. But I think it could have been done.

It's too easy for us fans to say that everything would have been better if Superman III followed the comics more closely and used characters like Brainiac, but the time period which it was made in has to be taken into consideration. Of course the Ross Webster character makes more sense if it was Lex Luthor, but that's only because we all know how well that conglomerate interpretation of the character works now or how Brainiaic was responsible for Krypton's destruction. These were all characteristics that came after the release of the movie and definitely out of grasp of the writers of the films that had to consult with DC just to know who all existed in the Superman universe.

Provided the filmmakers had access to the 'Rebirth' storyline that was being developed concurrent with their movie – and as discussed elsewhere in this thread, it seems highly likely that they did (just five years later DC would grant Tim Burton and Sam Hamm early access to The Killing Joke before it was published) – then all of my suggestions to improve the plot were based on ideas that were readily available in 1983. My suggestion of connecting Brainiac's metamorphosis into an incorporeal data stream (based on the 'Rebirth' storyline) with the destruction of Krypton (Brainiac's connection to Krypton, via his theft of Kandor, dates back to his debut story in 1958) is just a fan fiction idea to explain how his arrival on Earth could be connected with the Vulcan satellite subplot from the movie as it already exists. I wasn't suggesting that Brainiac should be the cause of Krypton's destruction. The concept of Brainiac influencing Gus to build the supercomputer follows similar storylines from the Pre-Crisis comics, such as 'The Computer-Man of Steel!' (Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen Vol 1 #130, July 1970), in which Brainiac does the exact same thing to Jimmy Olsen.

As for Luthor replacing Webster, it's just common sense that fans back in 1983 would have preferred the hero's iconic arch enemy over a new character they've never heard of. I'm sure the producers were aware of this and would have preferred Hackman, had that particular bridge not already been burnt during the making of Superman II. Superman I and II were, in my opinion, very good adaptations of the comics, and the best parts of Superman III – such as the romance between Clark and Lana, the splitting of Superman, and the junk yard fight – were all adapted directly from the comics too. The worst aspects of Superman III, such as the Ross Webster and Richard Pryor scenes, had no basis in the comics whatsoever. Superman III could have easily been a better film had the studio fully committed to it being a Superman adaptation and not tried subverting it into a star vehicle for Richard Pryor. This should have been obvious to everyone involved, even back in 1983.

Again, it was bad decision making, not lack of money, that prevented Superman III from reaching its potential.