The next time I watch SUPERMAN, it might be an odd experience. Now that I've conversed with Ilya Salkind, the films might stand differently. A friend of mine has gone off them now that he knows everything about them, conversely, I'm more drawn to them. They are personal films to me. When I was a kid, SUPERMAN always stood out -- its visuals, its bold attempt to reach our childlike sensibilities, there's magic there, something tangible that draws you into the wonder. SUPERMAN is still a monumental achievement in film-making; the tenacity, the energy, the international flavour, the bold colours softly diffused by Geoffrey Unsworth’s camera, the star names and the technical bravados make it an irresistible cauldron of magic. SUPERMAN is in the same family as APOCALYPSE NOW, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, STAR WARS, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA - these are the films that I watch for inspiration -- how did they make them? Books, interviews and reviews can only scratch the surface. But how to really reveal or even understand the core energy that pushes human resourcefulness to the limit to conjure up images that simply leave the audience awestruck? Perhaps rightfully, that may always remain a mystery.

Ilya and I spoke for forty-five minutes on the first night to set-up the next day's interview, but the following conversation is not based on one call. Over several weeks, we spent 11 hours on Superman: The Movie as well as several other topics. Admittedly, during the first call I was a little nervous and overwhelmed, for me this was an event. But it didn't take long before we were chatting like friends. I couldn't cover everything; as soon as I put the phone down, a new question popped up in my head, ah well...this is just the beginning.

"You're the Superman CINEMA guy, yeah -- you don't like me very much." Ilya laughs.
"No, no. There's a lot of bullshit written about you."
"You didn't like me four years ago, everyone likes me now."
I admitted that this site was very Donner-biased but now it's liberal, and since never-before-heard details have arisen, I have a whole new perspective on the Superman productions. The media has painted a very black picture of the Salkinds. Admittedly, I believed some of it, but I don't think I was the only one, considering the rarity of a Salkind interview to balance the stories.

Ilya loves to chat; he's very old school, I sensed a childlike quality. He's still crazy about the myth and the legend, the bedtime stories you read to your children, the scary stories around the fire, it's all that classical, archetypal literature he wants to see on the screen.

He's very appreciative of the fanbase, and when I said that I'd never read a comic book, that really surprised him. "So, what are you crazy about then?" he asked. "Your films," I replied. Even though I've never read a comic book, I understand how a superhero film should be presented on screen. I know where the boundaries are, and you cross them at your peril, I'm thinking new powers in Superman II but we will go into that on another day. I owe everything to the Salkind Superman films, especially the first one. There's something magical about seeing popular, fantasy stories on the big screen when done right with sincerity and respect for the material, it's difficult to describe the power of cinema, the escapism into a fictional reality, I think Ilya wants to tap into that magic again with his new company.

We set up the interview for the next day…but as I've said before, the conversations presented here have been grabbed from many sessions...
…and this is how it went.

"Dharmesh, Dhar-mesh. Gandalf, why do they call you that?"
"Oh, it's my email addy."
"It's so funny, very funny."

Ilya never came across as an egomaniac, what surprised me was just how cool he was. He's got a larger than life, infectious personality, beaming with passion. Before we even got to the interview, we spent hours chatting about religion, the film industry and his future projects.

He talked up Sam Heughan, the star of Alexander, which comes out later this year. He believes in him and so does ICM, they signed him up instantly. Sam met Bryan Singer twice for the role of Superman! Ilya believes he's got everything that Christopher Reeve had. Who can argue with that? He feels that the Alexander picture will be an important feature, "We need positive role models, I feel Sam will do brilliantly."

In the 70s, Ilya was viewed as something akin to the son of General Zod, "I believed my own hype. I wasn't a horrible, horrible man, but was not a nice guy either. I was in my twenties, I had success with the Musketeers; we were big. You know, it was champagne, parties and Beverly Hills hotels." A lifestyle that caught out many of his colleagues during the hedonistic 70s when producers and directors briefly had control of the industry. Now he's the antithesis of that indulgence, Ilya doesn't smoke, or drink; prefers quiet nights, reading and watching DVDs. When Ilya was a youngster, his mother proclaimed he was the son of God, maybe now he's living up to that promise - he sees himself as a philanthropist - wanting to use his producing status in Hollywood to push the plight of starving children and the lives of the unfortunate onto the world's agenda, and to help them. If it weren't for neglect and government bureaucracy, we would be discussing the infinite imagination of children - I guess Ilya is now associated with the son of Jor-El.

We talked about the great writers from the 1800s like H.G. Wells - where did they get their inspiration and ideas from? "Those guys are geniuses, I may be talented in what I do, but I'm not a genius." He continued… "I need creative people around me. Chaplin, Fellini, Woody Allen, they are geniuses, they do it on their own." Ilya loves collaboration, although his title is Executive Producer, I think CREATIVE PRODUCER is the more fitting credit, not to discredit the executive status, of course.

We talked about Richard Lester; he remembered meeting him when Robin and Marion was released. It did okay with critics but was a box office flop. Ilya understood why, "Don't kill the legend." When you say Robin Hood, it instantly reminds you of an adventure film, so you must deliver to the audience’s expectations. Nobody wanted to see an aged Robin but Lester's brave take on the cultural character wasn't his first and wouldn't be his last, the iconoclastic director would bring the world's most iconic fictional hero down to Earth...more on Lester and his contribution later.

"From the outset, we were determined to stay true to the spirit of Superman. We wanted this movie to have more colour, style, action, and spectacular visuals than any film of its kind ever made before. But there would be no tampering with the legend."

When the Salkinds decided that Superman would be their next picture after Musketeers, their French office called to enquire about the rights.
"We were big and felt they'd asked too much for the rights." They picked up the rights for four million, but we only had to pay one million for the signature, the rest was paid over a period of time. One stipulation of the contract was that the producers commit 15 million, they [Warner Bros.] considered Superman an "A picture".

"We set out to make a serious, gigantic serial, but nobody believed in this film from the beginning." Ilya is continually frustrated by hyperbolic stories which are not representative of his original intentions; Donner's and Mankiewicz's calumnious comments that the producers set out to make a film which wasn't true to the character is particularly hurtful.

Ilya blames a lot of the money issues on his father, "The little guys were not being paid on Santa Claus. Because I was the partner, I was getting the blame, too. I had to make a decision; I broke the partnership ties with my father."

"I've made peace with him", Ilya Salkind calls Alex Salkind "father" now, before it was always Alex, it seemed less like a loving relationship and more business-like. There are ounces of regret in his voice when he talks about his father. He does point out that his father went through hell, barely escaped the threat of the Nazis. Maybe that altered Alex's outlook, and changed him considerably. Ilya's grandparents fled Russia when the Tsar reined terror on the Jews. Alex grew up in Paris. At the age of 12, Alex found his parent’s Russian Roubles, at the time they were worthless, but the astute, young boy had a plan...

Alex began a stock market in school, convincing his fellow pupils that the Russian Rouble will gain monetary value in the future. The kids ran home and raided their parents’ piggy banks; Alex sold each Rouble for 20 Francs! By the age of 18, he owned a Paris cinema. Even from a young age, Alex had a business acumen that was second to none. However, much later in life, it was precisely this that so affected Ilya’s relationship with his father. I didn't press this matter any further, but I felt that Ilya never received the fatherly love that he so desired, it was a business partnership, and you know...I don't know how that could ever work, but it did! For twenty years!!!

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