Two million dollars and top billing to take a role he was already associated with was an impossible offer [for Christopher Reeve] to walk away from. The Salkinds, producing yet again, didn't seem to realize quite what a property they had in Chris, either. Two million dollars was a handsome paycheck, but it still paled when compared to the amount they were paying Richard Pryor to be the villian - $4 million.

"He's been around longer than I have, and he deserves [it]," Chris said with remarkable grace. However, that grace no longer extended to the Salkinds, and, like Margot Kidder (who would find herself with barely a line in Superman III), he called them "untrustworthy, devious, and unfortunate people, " harsh words from a man who was remarkably temperate with his tongue in public.

Once again, though, in 1982, he had to be away from home for an extended period, as the filming of Superman III began. This time around, Chris wanted to give more depth to Clark Kent. He'd already achieved the lightness; now it was time to have a little more heft and avoid the possibility of caricature.

"I tried to give Clark Kent a new dimension," he told Guy Delcourt, "to show his gentility, his need to do good, his friendliness, instead of continuing to portray him as a comic personality or a slapstick character."

He also offered his opinion as to why there was no love story in the new film. It was, he explained, something he respected, because Superman had fallen in love "once and for all in Superman II." Superman had slept with Lois and then erased her memory of the affair. "He does this because he feels that he can handle the pain of their separation more easily than she can."

But it was also a fact that there was absolutely no chemistry between Chris and Annette O'Toole's Lana Lang. What romance occurred would be described by O'Toole as "bittersweet, not hot and heavy," which was almost a metaphor for the entire film.

Somewhere along the line, the film's basic idea of going deeper into Superman, and revealing more about him, had been lost in the rewrites. Even five weeks spent filming in Alberta - substituting for the American Midwest on film - didn't seem to illuminate much of anything.

The Salkinds had a budget, and they planned on using it, all $35 million of it. The theory, which would become prevalent in Hollywood, was that if you spent and spent to overwhelm an audience, they'd be happy. And so locations and effects were piled heavily upon each other, as if they could substitute for a plot. During the filming it became apparent that restraint wasn't going to be one of the watchwords on this production. Richard Pryor had been recruited not to play a part, it seemed, but to be Richard Pryor, one of the hottest comedy talents of the period, in a Superman movie. It was as if the Salkinds (with director Richard Lester equally guilty) had sold out the franchise for a quick profit. The quality control that made the first two films such a delight had vanished entirely. They'd forgotten that the law of diminishing returns didn't necessarily have to set in so quickly - as long as a certain amount of care was exercised.

For Chris, becoming more and more horrified as the shoot dragged on, it was a case of give it his best, get it over with, and get out, back to [his girlfriend] Gae and [son] Matthew in New York, to try and erase the experience from his mind - only there was no superkiss that could do that. He came away with even less love for the Salkinds than he'd had going into the filming. Their motive, he said, was no more than "greed", and he continued, "There are some things about commercial filmmaking that are in really bad taste. For a film to be commercial, it must earn money, and that results in strategic planning in certain degrees - the goal to earn even more money. When it comes down to a showdown between quality and integrity and commercial expedience, guess who wins?" The answer was going to be self-evident. He'd come away from the whole experience with a very bad taste in his mouth. And even if it had made him a relatively rich man, he wasn't planning on returning. The scriptwriters of Superman III had seemed to settle for the lowest common denominator, a fact that wasn't lost on fans.

"I decided back in 1981, when I read the script for Superman III. I said, 'I'll do it,' because I'd said I'd do it, but it wasn't up to the mark. Something was missing. They left out the warmth and the humor." The Salkinds had spent a lot of money on the movie, and they desperately needed to recoup it. After the first weekend it seemed as if that wouldn't be a problem, with the film taking in a staggering $13 million. And while it was a hit with moviegoers, eventually bringing in around $60 million - less than either of its predecessors, but still a very decent figure - it didn't fare too well with some of the critics, although a few genuinely enjoyed it.