LAST EDITED ON 07-02-01 AT 09:04 PM (EST)

>(Lady T--
><<Who woulda thought that Marlon Brando was Supe's father.
>MB played Supe's father in the Christopher Reeves' "Superman.")

A quick side point regarding this (how could I resist the temptation to turn this into another movie thread): Richard Donner ("Lethal Weapon" series) filmed "Superman" and "Superman II" together, so that he could film Marlon Brando's, Gene Hackman's, Ned Beatty's and Valerie Perrine's scenes at the same time. Brando negotiated a piece of the first movie, and when "Superman" was a huge hit despite its many flaws, he made millions. Although Brando's scenes had already been filmed for "Superman II," he stood to make more millions from their use. Thus, the producers cut him out of the sequel completely.

The producers (there's that evil word again) then ended up bringing in Richard Lester ("Help!", "A Hard Day's Night", "Robin and Marian", etc.) to direct the remainder of "Superman II" in place of Donner, who wanted a Brando-sized cut of the second movie himself. While all this was taking place, the cinematographer from the first movie died and also had to be replaced.

Lester used the scenes filmed by Donner that included Hackman, Perrine and Beatty; he didn't have much choice, because they were DONE and wanted millions of their own to come back for reshoots. But he also filmed a whole series of new scenes in an effort to humanize Superman ... and "Superman II" received dramatically better reviews (except from Dick Donner's friends, such as Leonard Maltin) than "Superman" did ... and was a much better movie, to boot, despite Reeves' overacting in the Donner-directed scenes. Lester overcame the loss of Brando by bringing back Susannah York in her role of Lara, Superman's mother, from the first movie for the scene in the Fortress of Solitude before Superman chooses to turn "human" to pursue Lois.

Moral: pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.