Superman vs. Hollywood: How Fiendish Producers, Devious Directors, and Warring Writers Grounded an American Icon (Cappella Books (Paperback)) by Jake Rossen & Mark Millar

Author:Jake Rossen & Mark Millar [Rossen, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2008-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

By 1986, comics had become largely a fringe market, no longer the coffee-table institution they once were. Home video and Nintendo systems began taking up the majority of adolescents’ free time; reading was laborious, static. Why read about Superman when you could control his actions via a game cartridge?

Those who did peruse comics were usually suit-and-tie professionals with nostalgic spending habits, or college-age literati who preferred the troubled souls of Marvel’s X-Men to the cosmic adventures of the Man of Steel. The mutant opposition sold five hundred thousand copies per month; Superman, under one hundred thousand.

DC’s hopes hinged on two factors. First, celebrated comics writer/artist John Byrne, who had helped catapult X-Men to the top of the sales charts, was signed to an exclusive deal. He was directed to reboot the Superman mythology with whatever alterations he deemed necessary to make the character more accessible. Second, Cannon’s big-screen outing was poised to lure general audiences into sampling the updated comics series.

Byrne held up to his end of the deal; Cannon did not.

The Man of Steel, the six-issue miniseries that added a contemporary spin to the Superman lore, was a smash hit, selling two hundred thousand copies in 1986. Readers were directed to dismiss anything that had gone before as alternate-Earth fiction. Clark’s powers did not develop until his late teens, erasing Superboy from existence; the sole survivor of Krypton, he had no cousins; his mortal father, Jonathan Kent, remained alive; and most important, his powers were lessened to Max Fleischer–era levels. He could no longer juggle planets, and extreme effort—like moving an oil tanker—would cause him to break a sweat.

With sales reinvigorated, DC anticipated that the summer 1987 release of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace would prove to be a further boon to their market share. What they were forced to rally behind was an abomination. A test screening had gone so disastrously that Furie was directed to excise thirty minutes from the film’s two-hour running time, including a major subplot about a failed Nuclear Man prototype. Even after the hackwork, the optical effects shots—which, inverse to the competency level of the staffers, were more numerous than in previous installments—were mediocre at best, laughable at worst.

Released in July 1987, Superman IV was a bomb by any standards, grossing under $6 million in its opening weekend and crawling to a meager overall take of less than $16 million. By way of comparison, the first film had done roughly $7 million in its first seventy-two hours, despite playing in only one-third as many theaters. Cannon, completely devoid of any finances, spent next to nothing on marketing.

Reeve put on a brave face for the media, emphasizing the more mature message of the film. It contained the action fans had come to expect, he promised, but also aspired to get people thinking about the enormous responsibility the world’s superpowers have to their people. Kidder was equally diligent, though even propaganda-spouting television hosts could barely hide their amusement at the proceedings. David Letterman chuckled through the obligatory clip on his late-night show and then heckled Kidder about its quality.

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