“I'm not shy about saying, Richard Donner’s Superman I still think is the paradigm by which we all still should follow. It's all there.” – Kevin Feige “I liked parts of [1989’s Batman], but the whole movie is mainly boring to me. It's OK, but it was more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie” – Tim Burton When looking back at different eras of modern cinema, it is often clear what types of movies dominate the box office and the cultural zeitgeist. For example, sci-fi movies captured audiences’ imaginations during the late 1970s and 1980s with undeniable classics like the original Star Wars trilogy, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future. And if you asked most people today what genre is primarily responsible for filling theater seats these past several years, I can’t imagine anyone giving but one answer: comic book movies. Despite this, there was a time when filmmakers looking to comic strips detailing the adventures of spandex-wearing superheroes like Superman and Batman for inspiration was not only uncommon but viewed as a ridiculous waste of talent and resources. And yet, their instincts paid off at the time in terms of the success of (some of) their movies as well as laid the groundwork for what is perhaps the most lucrative film genre in history. Thus, I propose that in order to understand how the comic book movie genre has evolved we must revisit its roots. Specifically, the two films that (in my humble opinion) are most responsible for laying said groundwork: Richard Donner’s Superman from 1978, and Tim Burton’s Batman from 1989. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED!! [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for 1978’s “Superman” and 1989’s “Batman.” You have been warned.] Image by Satheesh Sankaran from Pixabay Superman (1978) Film producer Ilya Salkind (The Three Musketeers, The Prince and the Pauper) first conceived the idea of a movie centered on the “man of steel” back in 1973. Together with his father Alexander Salkind (Austerlitz, The Trial) and their partner Pierre Spengler, Ilya successfully purchased the film rights to Superman from DC Comics in November of 1974. From there, he and his team went to work on finding a writer, director, and lead actor. Regarding the former, Leigh Brackett (Rio Bravo, The Empire Strikes Back) and William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men) were initially considered to draft a screenplay. The award-winning science-fiction author Alfred Bester even started writing a treatment, but Alexander Salkind deemed him not famous enough and thus persuaded Mario Puzo (The Godfather, The Godfather Part II) to write the script in exchange for a $600,000 salary. Despite liking Puzo’s scripts for a two-part film, the Salkinds deemed them too long and thus hired Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer) and David Newman (What’s Up, Doc?), who had co-written the 1967 crime drama Bonnie and Clyde, to come in and do some rewrites. Since David became busy with some television writing, his wife Leslie came on to help finish up the rewrites with Benton. Several directors were considered, from Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) and William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) to Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) and George Lucas (American Graffiti, Star Wars). Ilya wanted to hire Steven Spielberg despite but his father wanted to see how Jaws performed both critically and commercially. Due to its success, Spielberg was approached but he had to turn down the offer as he was committed to direct Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ultimately, however, the late Richard Donner (The Goonies, Lethal Weapon) was hired to direct after the producers saw his 1976 horror movie The Omen. Once Donner came onto the project, he found the 550-page screenplay from Puzo, Benton, and the Newmans to be extraneously long (and thus impossible to shoot, even in two movies) and possessing a campy tone. Thus, he hired screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz (Diamonds Are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun) to come on as a “script doctor” and perform rewrites. Despite being unable to give him official credit as a writer, Donner did list Mankiewicz as a creative consult in the final cut. The first major casting decisions, announced in 1975 only days apart, were for Superman’s father Jor-El and the main antagonist Lex Luthor. The former role was given to Marlon Brando (A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), who ended up earning $19 million (approximately $80.6 million in 2022) thanks to his contract granting him nearly 12% of the gross box office profits on top of his salary. For the latter role of the villain, Gene Hackman (The French Connection, Mississippi Burning, Unforgiven) signed on. Both Brando and Hackman were given top billing over Christopher Reeve, the actor who ultimately was hired to play the titular protagonist. Initially, the producers wanted an A-list star to play Superman. Actors such as Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, and Dustin Hoffman were all considered. However, when Donner joined the project, the decision was made to cast a relatively unknown actor. Reeve was suggested early on, but Donner and the producers deemed him too young and not physically intimidating enough for the role. After over 200 unknown actors (including Ilya’s wife’s dentist) auditioned and several others were offered the role (from Bruce Jenner and Warren Beatty to James Caan), Donner and Ilya were finally convinced to give Reeve a screen test in February 1977 (at which point pre-production was already underway in Europe). Despite impression with his acting chops, he was initially instructed to wear a muscle suit but flat-out refused. Instead, Reeve underwent a script exercise regimen (supervised by fellow actor David Prowse) to help him bulk up from 188 to 212 pounds. Due to his lack of A-list status, Reeves was only paid $250,000 to film the first two Superman movies (while Brando and Hackman both received salaries at or exceeding two million dollars). With a director, finished script, and cast, the project kicked off principal photography on March 28, 1977 and lasted over a year and a half since both movies were shot back-to-back. Thus, filming did not wrap until October of 1978 (only two months before the first movie was released in theaters). Pinewood Studios in England were used for the scenes on Krypton, while New York City served as the primary location for shooting the Metropolis scenes and much of the Smallville scenes were shot in Alberta, Canada. Production faced many issues, which quickly skyrocketed the film’s budget (much to the discontent of the producers). When all was said and done, the first movie alone cost 55 million dollars which made it the most expensive movie ever made up to that point in history. This sparked tensions between Donner and the Salkinds, the latter of whom reportedly grew frustrated with Donner due to his transparent hatred of fellow producer Pierre Spengler. The relationships became so counterproductive that Richard Lester, who had directed films for the Salkinds before, was brought in to mediate between Donner and them. This saga would continue after the first movie was released, when the Salkinds ultimately fired Donner from the sequel (even though Donner had already filmed seventy-five percent of the sequel) and replaced him with Lester as director. Given the time period when the film was made, it contained several impressive visual effects sequences which relied on full-scale models and matte paintings for sets like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Fortress of Solitude. Famously, however, it was the flying effects that defined much of the effects team’s time (so much so that, according to Ilya Salkind, two million dollars were spent on failed flying effects experiments in Rome well before filming actually started). To achieve the effect of a man flying, wire flying riggings suspended from tower cranes (or rigs of the ceiling when in the studio) were used for landings and take-offs. Reeve did much of the stunt work himself, being suspended as high as fifty feet in the air to achieve the flying effect. To eliminate the wires from final shots during post-production, rotoscoping techniques were employed (sometimes, however, lighting conditions in specific shots made such intensive editing unnecessary). For shots where Superman is flying away from or towards the camera, the special-effects team utilized blue screens by suspending Reeve against the screen and rigging a special device to flap his cape (thus creating the illusion of movement) while the camera mixed long zooms and dolly movements to cause Reeve to become either smaller or larger within the frame of the shot. Finally, the blue background of the blue screen was photochemically removed with Reeve’s isolated image being inserted into the matted area of a background plate shot. All of the specialized camera work that went into crafting this iconic special effect led to the creation of the Zoptic system (a new front projection effect). After a strenuous production process, Superman (stylized as Superman: The Movie) was released in December of 1978 after being pushed back six months from a June release date (which would have coincided with the 40th anniversary of Action Comics 1 in which the character first debuted. For Donner, however, this delay was not enough as he preferred another six months for post-production. Upon release, Superman became a massive box-office success. Grossing 300.5 million dollars worldwide (including re-releases), the film ended up being the highest-grossing movie in North America that year, the sixth-highest-grossing movie of all time at the time, and Warner Brothers’ largest box-office gross at the time. Critically, Superman was largely received well despite its obvious flaws. It also received three Oscar nominations for Editing, Original Score, and Sound, but won none. Instead, it was given a Special Achievement Award for Best Visual Effects. In addition, the film was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in 2017. Not only did Superman spawn a franchise with three commercially-successful sequels (and a spin-off Supergirl), but it is now credited with spawning the mainstream popularity and success of the modern comic book movie genre. Despite its evident flaws given its age, Richard Donner’s original Superman film is (as Kevin Feige himself put it) the “paradigm” by which any other comic book movie tries to live up to. For one thing, it tells the story of Kal-El (Christopher Reeve), an alien from the planet Krypton, who finds a life on Earth being raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent (Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter). Despite his extraterrestrial and superhuman origins, this boy—known as Clark Kent—learns humility, kindness, and love for mankind ever before he discovers the true extent of his Kryptonian powers. Thus, the story of Superman is one of recognizing your true potential and choosing to use it to help others because of the love you were shown as a child. This origin story for any comic book hero is so pure that it only makes sense for the film that laid the foundation for this genre today stars such a character. And Donner’s Superman exceptionally nails that story given the time in which they were working. Thus, in that sense, virtually every other superhero origin film models itself (in one way or another) after this movie. However, the movie isn’t without its flaws. Personally, the character of Clark Kent/Superman has always come off as “too good.” Not necessarily in terms of skill, but rather in his moral compass. Simply put, I find it very hard to believe that any alien child from another planet with godlike strength, speed, and invincibility would not at least be teased by the darker path you could go down with said abilities. And despite how much Donner’s direction and Reeve’s performance tries to ground the character in a very smalltown America kind of upbringing (with the façade of Kent the reporter embodying a quirky, geeky man), it remains difficult for me to buy that such a purely benevolent soul exists in such a powerful being. To this extent, Superman comes off to me as more of a clear metaphor as opposed to a relatable human character. That being said, something else that Donner’s Superman (and, in fairness, its sequel) did for many other comic book movies to work off of is how it integrates the extraterrestrial aspects of its protagonist. Whereas the Clark Kent part of Superman helps ground him in our reality, the Kal-El part of him could have easily felt way too out there (no pun intended). Instead, Donner takes a more delicate approach by making the politics and society of Krypton more the backdrop of this movie’s story as opposed to the centerpiece while also highlighting Superman’s parents—Jor-El (Marlon Brando) and Lara (Susannah York)—devotion to their son’s future which adds a much-needed layer of relatability to Superman’s story of family. Without a doubt, such a tackling of this kind of extraterrestrial origin paved the way for so many iconic superheroes today whose stories are based out of (if not almost exclusively focused in) the space beyond Earth (Marvel Studios’s Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy come to mind). The fact that audiences can walk into a movie theater and watch a new comic book movie about someone from another planet without being utterly distracted or laugh at such a story is largely thanks to Donner’s Superman. Of course, I can’t discuss the historical significance of this film without touching on its production design and special effects. Regarding the former, I do appreciate how Donner decided to use real-world locations as doubles for iconic sites of Superman’s story (i.e. New York City as the visual basis for Metropolis). This almost certainly adds another level of grounding this rather ostentatious origin story by placing such fantastical events in an easily identifiable place and context. But perhaps the thing that most evidently places the film in its specific time and place are the special effects. Nowadays, seeing Superman fly around looks pretty hokey. But, such efforts to innovate special effects (seen in other movies of the time like Star Wars and Alien) are so important for movies of this genre today because they just wouldn’t look as good if such efforts weren’t taken back then to try and push the technological boundaries of effects-heavy filmmaking. As a movie compared to other comic book movies, Donner’s original Superman is by no means my favorite (my god, is it slow!). But, you simply cannot deny how crucial it is to the bedrock of the comic book genre booming today. From its handling of the hero’s journey to its meticulous visual storytelling with the setting and action, Superman is unquestionably one of the most important superhero movies ever made. Given how many of them have been released in this century alone, that’s saying something. Batman (1989)
More than a decade after the successful Batman television series starring Adam West came to an end, film producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan purchased the film rights to the characters from DC Comics. They pitched the idea of reinvigorating Batman’s popularity by crafting “the definitive, dark, serious version” of the character that co-creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger envisioned back in the late 1930s. However, the studios initially turned them down because they preferred the campy tone from the TV show. Disappointed, Uslan wrote a script titled “Return of the Batman” to give industry people a clearer idea of what his vision for a new Batman-centered movie could be. Around the same time, fellow producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber (An American Werewolf in London, The Color Purple) joined the project. Together, these four thought their best chance was to model the project’s development after Richard Donner’s Superman film from 1978. This strategy ended up working by finally convincing a studio, Warner Brothers (the same studio that financed Donner’s Superman movie), to back the project. By 1983, a second screenplay was written by uncredited Superman writer Tom Mankiewicz who focused on Batman’s origin story and involved the Joker in the plot. Furthermore, comic book artist Marshall Rogers was hired to create some concept art for the project. Later that year, the project was officially announced for a 1985 release date and a budget of $20 million. Around this time, Ivan Reitman (Stripes, Ghostbusters) and Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream) were being considered the direct with the former wanting to cast Bill Murray in the title role and Eddie Murphy as his sidekick Robin. But with the successful box-office run of his adventure comedy film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands) was hired by Warner Brothers to direct the movie. Once Burton got his hands on Mankiewicz’s screenplay (which had undergone nine different rewrites but still retained much of the original spirit from Mankiewicz), he had his now-ex-girlfriend write a new treatment because he felt that the script was too campy. Despite not being a comic book fan himself, he was impressed by the 1986 comic book miniseries “The Dark Knight Returns” for its darker and more serious tone and thus aimed his version of the film to take more from that. Thus, he hired comic book fan Sam Hamm to write a new screenplay based on his more mature vision for the film. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers hired Steve Englehart to write his own screenplay (which took similar inspirations found in Mankiewicz’s original screenplay). By the fall of 1986, both Englehart and Hamm’s scripts were finished. Despite Warner Brothers’ positive reception to Hamm’s approach, they remained hesitant to move forward until the critical and commercial success of Burton’s comedy film Beetlejuice in 1988. Once the project was officially given the greenlight in April of that year. Thus, the casting search was underway. Similar to the process for finding the title character for Richard Donner’s Superman, the studio first sifted through several A-list stars for the role of Batman. Several notable actors from the time were considered such as Mel Gibson (Gallipoli, Lethal Weapon, Braveheart), Kevin Costner (The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves), Charlie Sheen (Red Dawn, Platoon, Wall Street), and Harrison Ford (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner). But producer Jon Peters, having seen his performance in Glenn Gordon Caron’s drama film Clean and Sober, suggested that Michael Keaton (Night Shift, Birdman, Spotlight) should play the role. Burton, having worked with Keaton on Beetlejuice, agreed to the idea. When Keaton was announced to play Batman, the controversy stirred amongst comic book fans resulted in about 50,000 letters being mailed to the offices of Warner Brothers protesting the decision. There was a fear among fans that Burton (due to his work on Pee-wee’s Big Adventure) casting Keaton (who was largely known for comedies like Mr. Mom) indicated that the movie would be more akin to the campy tone of the 1966 Batman film starring Adam West. Even Batman co-creator Bob Kane heavily questioned the decision to have Keaton play the titular role. Regarding the main villain role, actors such as Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue) and Ray Liotta (Field of Dreams, Goodfellas) were considered to play the Joker. However, the studio’s top choice since development on the project officially began was Jack Nicholson (Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A Few Good Men) who had some intense demands for his contract (including top billing and being given time off from filming to attend home games of the Los Angeles Lakers). Furthermore, he agreed his standard $10 million salary be cut nearly in half in exchange for a percentage of the film’s earnings (including merchandise), resulting in him ultimately taking home more than $50 million. When it came to crafting the look for the project, Burton was impressed with production designer Anton Furst’s work on Neil Jordan’s gothic fantasy horror movie The Company of Wolves and was able to hire him to work on this movie. Furst has since spoken out on just how productive and positive his working relationship with Burton on the set was. Together, they aimed to make Gotham City look like “the ugliest and bleakest metropolis imaginable” due to being run by criminal interests and lacking any cohesive architectural planning. When it came to designing the Batmobile, Furst looked for inspiration in jet planes and war machines before ultimately basing the look for the car off of race cars from the 1930s and 1950s. Regarding the costumes, designer Bob Ringwood (Dune, Empire of the Sun, Alien 3) admitted the biggest challenge was to make Keaton (whose build was average) look larger than life in the Batsuit. Furthermore, Keaton’s mild claustrophobia made donning the suit difficult for his personal comfort (although he channeled the discomfort into his performance as Batman). Over the course of filming, $250,000 was spent on building over a dozen latex suits and capes and six head pieces. Finally, Nicholson’s contract stipulated that he had final approval over his makeup design which involved acrylic-based makeup paint for his chalf-white face as the Joker. Principal photography lasted from October of 1988 to February of 1989, utilizing a 51-acre backlot at Pinewood Studios in England for the Gotham City set (one of the biggest sets every built at Pinewood). Burton referred to filming the movie as “torture” and “the worst period” of his life due to problems with secrecy from the press and the production budget increasing by several millions of dollars. Furthermore, a writers’ strike that was going on during filming made it very difficult for rewrites to occur during production. Notably, the climactic scene in the cathedral was conceived of on the spot (which cost an additional $100,000) despite Burton not approving of it and initially having no idea how to end the scene. Released in June of 1989, Batman broke several box-office records upon release and ending up making about $411 million beating out Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at the domestic box office. Furthermore, it was the highest-grossing film based on a DC Comics character until Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was released in 2008. Critics were generally positive about the film, although it did receive some negative attention for its dark tone. However, it was argued by some that Burton seemed more interested in the look of the sets and the Joker’s story than his superhero protagonist in terms of his characterization or arc. Furthermore, comic book fans at the time were unhappy with the Joker being the murderer of Thomas and Martha Wayne as well as Alfred letting Vicki Vale into the Batcave. However, fans generally praised Keaton’s portrayal of the “Caped Crusader.” At the Oscars that year, Batman won the only Academy Award it was nominated for (Best Art Direction). Furthermore, the critical and commercial success of the film sparked a multi-film franchise with three sequels (sound familiar? 😊) as well as inspired Warner Brothers to have its animation department to create Batman: The Animated Series which ran from 1992 to 1995. Burton himself credits the film for helping spawn the modern comic book genre, saying: “It was like the first dark comic book movie. Now everyone wants to do a dark and serious superhero movie. I guess I’m the one responsible for that trend.” For my full review of Tim Burton’s original Batman movie, click here. In short, I don’t like its approach to telling Batman’s story or much of its characterization. It is perhaps the pinnacle of “style over substance.” That being said, I want to focus on the positive contributions it made to the genre in the form of style. Simply put, this movie’s undeniably got style. Much more so than Donner’s Superman, Burton recognized the opportunity in making a comic book movie to take strong visual inspiration from the graphic novels that it’s based on. While there is perhaps no movie that’s done this better than Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, this movie certainly took the first leap to bring the aesthetic of comic book to live-action on the silver screen. In its portrayal of Gotham City and its shady nooks and crannies, 1989’s Batman uses environment to flesh out the corrupted political scene and almost unbelievably unstable cityscape of Batman’s hometown. Of course, many fans of the superhero movie genre nowadays (especially children) go see them in theaters for the thrills of watching cool characters do cool things with cool weapons and gadgets. It seems Burton was prescient in this respect, because so much of the look of Batman (Michael Keaton) aims to embrace the inherently cool aesthetic of so many superheroes. Not only are his gadgets meant to impress, but Burton’s color palette for Batman’s suit and famous Batmobile blending well into the shadowy ambience of Gotham City adds some texture to the character (even if the dialogue doesn’t 😊). And one cannot highlight the use of colors in Batman without bringing up Joker (Jack Nicholson), whose unabashedly over-the-top insane purple-and-green villain suit very clearly lets the audience know what this movie is going for in terms of “style over substance.” If only Burton and his creative team put a little more effort into developing the psychology of these two iconic comic book characters. With a few notable exceptions, so many scenes in Batman disappointingly lack any kind of character development for either the hero or the villain. Aside from the utterly trash comic book movies of the last few decades (lookin’ at you, Suicide Squad!), this movie is perhaps the most atrocious example of having cool-looking characters do and say cool things without any kind of depth or meaning behind it. But, to end on a positive note, one thing that 1989’s Batman (in my humble opinion) isn’t given enough credit for is how it’s not an origin story. Other than a few brief flashbacks surrounding the deaths of Bruce Wayne’s parents, the audience is never given much clue as to the sequence of events that pushed Wayne to don the cape and cowl to become Gotham’s “Dark Knight.” Not only is this a bold storytelling choice for the time this came out given general moviegoers’ relative lack of intimate knowledge of comic book stories back then, but this also paved the way for other non-origin comic book flicks like Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, and The Batman from Matt Reeves. Needless to say, both the 1978 Superman from Richard Donner and the 1989 Batman from Tim Burton remain two key components of the foundation upon which all other comic book movies since have built upon. Whether it’s the emphasis on superhero-defining aesthetics and distinctive atmosphere or telling a captivating story with strong morals about doing good for others, both of these movies have (mostly) earned the credit they’ve received from cinephiles and comic book movie fans for what they did to bring this genre to life. For better or worse, these films kickstarted one of the most significant eras of popular cinema ever. The question I’m left with, however, is where does the genre go from there? I’ll leave that for a future blog. 😊 Which of these two early comic book movies do you think is more important to how the genre has evolved since? What are some other foundational superhero movies that you would recommend that people check out? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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