SUPERMAN IV MEDIA

The following is a except from the Files Magazines - Superheroes On Screen Three [SH-3]: Superman & Spider-Man [1986].

Superman IV A Preview.
An Interview with Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal.
Screenwriters of "Superman IV".
By Edward Gross.

Last issue [SH-2] we provided an in-depth interview with David and Leslie Newman, the husband and wife screenwriting team behind the first three Superman films.
Bearing this in mind, it only seems appropriate that we go behind the scenes of Superman IV with Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, the writing partnership that has mapped out the Man of Steel's latest cinematic adventure.
Despite unpleasant creative experiences on The Legend of Billy Jean and The Jewel of the Nile, Konner and Rosenthal are unable to shield the enthusiasm they feel for their latest collaborative effort. Like the Newmans, they feel a certain sense of responsibility in chronicling the adventures of what has become one of the greatest American myths of our time.
Working with star Christopher Reeve, they have produced what may very well be the most significant and timely Superman adventure ever, combining all we've come to expect from the character with today's greatest threat against mankind.

Q: I guess the place to begin is how the two of you landed up as collaborators.

MR: On Superman?

Q: In general.

MR: We have actually known each other for quite a long time. We actually met at the University of Vermont about fifteen years ago. Although we've been friends since then, we only started writing together about three years ago.

Q: What was the first thing the two of you wrote?

MR: At the time it was called Legend, but it came out as The Legend of Billy Jean, a little transmogrified.

Q: Were you satisfied with the final results?

MR: No, we hated it and considered taking our names off of it.

Q: You also did Real Genius, correct?

LK: We did an uncredited rewrite on that.

Q: But how does it feel doing a rewrite on something, and not getting any credit for it?

MR: It doesn't bother us. Usually a picture starts out as one person's vision, and as long as it stays that vision it's the way the credit should be. Where as The Legend of Billy Jean, which started out in our script as our vision, was rewritten by the director who turned it into his vision, and we think it's one of the worst movies ever made.

Q: I wouldn't call it the worst movie ever made.

LK: We would (all laugh).

Q: So how did you elevate into The Jewel of the Nile from something like The Legend of Billy Jean?

LK: The script for Legend was really quite wonderful, regardless of how the movie turned out. Michael Douglas read that, and asked us to come in. At the time they were, interviewing lots of writers to see what they would do with the sequel. We told him our ideas, and he liked those. So we were hired.

Q: Were you satisfied with the results of that one?

MR: No, we're also unpleased with what the director did.
LK: My analysis would be that the first film, Romancing the Stone, did $75 million at the box office, and virtually no teenagers went to see it. That's a remarkable achievement. The people who made the movie, primarily the studio and the director, made the decision that what they ought to do this time, since they've already got the adults, was to get the kids. So they filled it with unending explosions and chase sequences...that whole finale which went on and on, and was loud and huge and didn't mean anything. They took out a lot of the romance and charm that was in both the first one and our script

Q: So the script was pretty different than what landed up on the screen?

MR: Different in tone. We wrote something in a reality based romantic comedy vein...
LK: The size of the action was much smaller.
MR: And the director truly thinks only in terms of explosions going on. '
LK: I think he was a little bit insecure with the people part of it, the comedy and the romance. He felt more comfortable with triggering explosive charges. That's what he did, and that's what you saw. It was some sort of an attempt to get the kids this time.
MR: He sort of made it a goofy big effects movie, where we both thought it should be more true to the first one and our script.

Q: So the adventure was more low key in your script?

LK: That's exactly the way we felt. In a sense I think the second one, to some extent, didn't have the charm, delight and surprise of the first one, and it didn't compare, in terms of action and adventure, to the Indiana Jones films.
MR: And our script very much echoed the tone of the first one.
LK: The film was directed with a heavy hand. But it's not writer's decisions.

Q: So I guess we won't be seeing your name on a third one?

LK: No. But this is not just our specific problem with these couple of directors and couple of movies. This is the status quo of the writer in Hollywood.
MR: I would imagine the situation would be a very frustrating one.
LK: Very much so. We're hoping to find the right one, to direct and just to get control. Our position is that we don't think everything we write is perfect or brilliant, but we're here to discuss and change if necessary. We would just like for us, and for the writers as a class, to have a little more weight given to their opinion, instead of being treated as hired help.

Q: Is directing something the two of you want to move to?

MR: We're both trying to do that right now. It seems to me that you've got to do it or not. Do it, or don't complain.

Q: Superman IV. How did you get involved with it?

MR: Actually, we had been approached earlier and were not inclined to do it until we heard that Christopher Reeve would.
LK: For a while, Chris wasn't going to do it and they were talking about recasting. As long as they were saying that, we were saying that we weren't interested for several reasons. One, we think he's the perfect Superman. Two, because it seemed to us that the studio wasn't making the kind of commitment to make a great movie if they weren't willing to step up and to pay his price and give him what he wanted.

Q: Was the problem money?

LK: No. Everybody agrees that the three Superman's get progressively worse. One was a great movie, two was okay and three was terrible. It was Chris' feeling, as well as ours, that it wasn't worth doing if four was going to be more like three than one. I don't think his hold out was about money at all. I think it was making sure that everyone involved was interested in making a great movie and not just another sequel.
MR: We looked at all three movies in one day, and you can very quickly see that the First one is one of the great American movies. The other two, the Third one quite especially, is terrible. I think Chris wanted to make sure in the budget and the studio commitment that Warner Brothers and Cannon were going to make that commitment. When he got convinced, we got convinced.

Q: What can you tell me about the story?

MR: There are certain things we can tell you, and certain things we can't. I will talk theoretically. We all felt, again, that the second one, a little bit, but the third one mostly, was a cynical movie in which the focus fell away from Superman. We felt that Superman is very interesting not just for the obvious story and plot reasons, but for who he is and why... if you look at every culture since the beginning of time, you'll find that every one has some kind of super hero in its mythology. He, as he fits in what America is and why we are what we are, is what we wanted to deal with on an epic scale. The Fourth one will have the same epic size that the First one did, and that's something Chris, who's involved with the story, feels strongly about and we, as writers, feel strongly about. It should deal with big issues in a way that movies are transferred into mythology, and that's how we're approaching it. Let's see....
LK: Did we mention "epic" (all laugh)?
MR: I'd say, specifically, that Superman IV will see the return of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor.

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