Richard Donner Got Stoned and Dressed Up as Superman to Get Writer Tom Mankiewicz to Work on His SUPERMAN Movie

When director Richard Donner was first brought on board to direct Superman, he was offered a million dollars and handed over a script that was said to be “perfect.” The script was delivered to his house along with a Superman costume, but the script was far from perfect. In a past interview with THR, Donner said of the script:

“It was the longest thing I have ever read. It was indulgent and heavy and had no point of view and treated [the comic books] with disrespect. It was disparaging. It was just gratuitous action. I’m reading this thing and Superman’s looking for Lex Luthor in Metropolis, and he’s looking for every bald head in the city. And then he flies down and taps a guy on the shoulder and it‘s [Kojak’s] Telly Savalas, who hands him a lollipop and says, ‘Who loves ya, baby?””

Needless to say, Donner wanted to rewrite the script before he started shooting it. He explained that if he made this movie, it would be to defend the character from this script. He said:

“I was brought up on Superman as a kid. There was a whole point in my life where I read Superman. So when I was finished with it, I was like, ‘Man, if they make this movie, they are destroying the legend of Superman.’ I wanted to do it just to defend him.”

So, he called up screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz to ask him to help develop a proper script for Superman. He initially didn’t want to get involved because he didn’t want to make a comic book movie. But, Donner told him that “it’s more than a comic book” and asked him to come over.

This is where the story gets funny! Before Mankiewicz showed up, Donner said, “I got a little stoned, smoked some weed, put on the Superman costume. I was in pretty good shape then.” Then when Mankiewicz showed up Donner “ran across the lawn and Tom turned and looked at me and ran back to his car.” Donner continues the story, saying:

“Tom says, ‘You’re crazy. Get the f— 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.’”

So, they got to work! But it was a hard sell to producer Alexander Salkind. When Donner and Mankiewicz met with him, Donner said:

The first thing I said was, ‘Mr. Salkind, this needs a major rewrite.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, this is a perfect script.’ I said, ‘It’s not a perfect script.’ So I started telling him all my feelings and he said, ‘You’re wrong.’ I said, ‘Thank you for the trip to Paris, but I can’t do this.’ And we started leaving. He said, ‘OK, tell me what you would rewrite.’

After the pitch for the new script, the producers agreed to move forward with Donner’s plan, and they went out and made one hell of a great Superman movie! I love finding these behind the scenes Hollywood stories!