It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since we lost Richard Donner. The talented and popular director and producer of many beloved Hollywood movies including the Lethal Weapon franchise, Maverick, Conspiracy Theory, Ladyhawke, Scrooged, the first X-Men movie, and even smaller budget films such as Inside Moves, Radio Flyer, and The Toy all helped to mark his storied and diversified career over the decades.

But of course there are those two movies that defined his Hollywood directing career. There was his directorial debut with The Omen, which proved he could handle a masterful, suspenseful story.

And then came the phone call that changed his life, and film, forever.

“This is Alexander Salkind,” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “I’m producing Superman, and I’ll pay you a million dollars to direct it.” That phone call set him on a career changing trajectory that would consume his life for the next two and a half years.

He would later recall his meeting with Marlon Brando about how he wanted to play Jor-El in the film. Brando threw out a pair of wacky suggestions about playing the character like a bagel or a green suitcase. Donner smartly explained, “Fans may not know what a green suitcase or a bagel looks like, but they know Jor-El.” From then on, Brando was a calm, confident professional who, even while battling severe head colds, gave Donner his all.

And Gene Hackman… Donner had such fun with him in his portrayal of Lex Luthor. In 2001 Hackman recalled how Donner would shave off his mustache if Hackman did likewise. Afterwards, Donner proceeded to peel off a fake mustache much to Hackman’s surprise and humor. “Dick made it fun,” Hackman recalled in 2021, “and that’s why the films turned out that way, too.”

That’s not to say that Dick Donner didn’t have his moments during filming. At one point, according to David Michael Petrou in his book The Making of Superman: The Movie, someone off camera sneezed very loudly during a crucial take, and Donner boomed, “God bless you… and you’re fired!” Another time he issued a memo to his cast and crew and signed it, “John Frankenheimer”.

But if there’s one actor who is closely identified with Donner, without a doubt it’s Christopher Reeve. The two had such love for one another during the filming. “Dick Donner is like a big kid in a candy store,” Reeve recalled in 1998. To work with a relative newcomer to film allowed Donner to bring out the best in Reeve’s dual performance as Clark Kent and Superman.

When the Superman movie series came to Blu-Ray in 2011, Donner reflected on some of the things that he encountered during pre-production on the film and later on through the shoot:

Of course, we are all familiar with the problems that affected the filming of both Superman and Superman II in 1977, which in turn resulted in Donner being dismissed in 1979 from completing the sequel. By then some 80 percent of Superman II had been completed, and it would be another 26 years before Donner’s concept was fully completed and released in 2006 as Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. Even then, some footage was taken from the theatrical release, while some clips were assembled from screen tests.

But if there’s one thing that Richard Donner gave us in Superman, it’s the concept of verisimilitude, that sense of truthfulness within a fictional environment. When Donner threw out many camp elements from the 1976 script, including one almost embarrassing moment in which Superman catches Telly Savalas, and Savalas as Kojak goes, “Who loves ya, baby?” Donner was determined not to allow the film to crumble into one weak joke after another. He had grown up reading Superman comics over the years. “You don’t screw around with Americana, apple pie, white bread sandwiches…” he would often say. So much so, that he had large banners with the word “Verisimilitude” posted on the walls of the Superman sets.

The honor and love and respect for Donner showed over the years from other filmmakers and producers who looked to his work on Superman as the template for later successes such as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and many of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. On one of the bonus features of the Dark Knight trilogy set, Nolan and Donner discussed their respective projects and how Nolan would approach handling his version of Batman in a grounded real world environment much like the real world Donner had grounded Superman in. In this excerpt, the directors talk about the music for their films.

And in approaching many of the films in the MCU, Kevin Feige would always tell his directors and writers to go back and watch Superman to see what Donner got right in that film. That’s why entries such as Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame only raised the bar even higher because of their grounded reality within the environment of a comic book universe.

Only a few days after Mr. Donner’s untimely passing, Jay Towers and Jim Bowers presented what I believe is the gold standard of the CapedWonder Superman Podcast. Originally intended to be a conversation with actor Jack O’Halloran, they brought in an equally special surprise guest in Sarah Douglas that allowed both the hosts and the guests to turn it into a beautiful tribute to the acclaimed director, which ended with an equally beautiful tribute from writer David Michael Petrou, who recalled how Donner would refer to him as “Squirt”. As I said, this is the gold standard for the podcast series, so give it a listen here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-caped-wonder-superman-podcast/id1444758667?i=1000528304097

With current and future incarnations of Superman on the horizon in both film and on television, we can’t help but remember the man who made us believe and set the bar very high for Superman and comic book films alike. A big man, larger than life, with a booming voice and a playful spirit who cared for his casts and crews as if they were family.

A true professional in every sense of the word.