Superman 3 what happened?

[comicstar100]

Re watching Superman 3 and I'm wondering what happened? This started the downfall of the Superman film franchise while Superman 4 killed it. I don't understand how we went from Zod to Richard Pryor. Was it the director, the script? How was this sub par film allowed release. Was their ever a different script that didn't make it? Brainiac always seemed like a logical step for the third movie to me.

[Kuwagaton]

Shaky execution, but honestly I enjoyed it more than the first two movies.

[Xarek]

Superman III and especially IV had troublesome productions. Richard Donner's firing from the franchise led to mayor script revisions, friction among cast members and producers, Lester's vision changes, severe budget cuts (for IV), all conspired against the quality of the films. Personally, I enjoy III for what it is: funny/campy Superman film. Superman IV, is and always will be, one of the worst films ever made.

[Mr. Mastermind]

Giving Lester creative control is what happened.

[DochaDocha]

From my understanding, one of the problems with III was that Richard Pryor was cast in hopes he'd used his trademark irreverent ad-libbing, but what ended up happening was that he ended up playing it straight off the script.

Anyway, Superman III's hidden value is that the movie's scam was used and referenced in Office Space.

[MykeHavoc]

Superman 3 has some potential in it. The manifestation junkyard fight is one of the best scenes in the franchise. Had they dealt with more of that and put in a villain like Brainiac, it could've matched the first two. There's still plenty to enjoy though. Doesn't get much better than drunk asshole superman beating himself up.

[Minerboh]

It had some good moments such as the Clark vs evil Superman and that giant super computer was a bit scary.

[exile001]

Superman III and especially IV had troublesome productions. Richard Donner's firing from the franchise led to mayor script revisions, friction among cast members and producers, Lester's vision changes, severe budget cuts (for IV), all conspired against the quality of the films.

Pretty much this. We went from a fantastic director/screenwriter to a bunch of hacks.

I actually enjoy Superman IV more than III. Superman IV has a lot more excuses for being terrible and seemingly embraces that fact by being a hilariously inept movie. It's enjoyable for being so very, very badly made.

III is just bad Superman, IMO, and despite the money and big name addition is still barely entertaining and mostly annoying (the shoehorned Richard Prior, the nonsensical story, the lack of any character/realistic motivation and general stupidity of the villains). Also, why not use Bizarro for the scenes of super-dickery?

I feel the same about Batman Forever/& Robin.

[WillieMorgan]

Pretty much everything listed above. There was a basic lack of understanding of the character that was compounded in the producers hiring an inferior director to Richard Donner after S1. Donner 'got' Superman in an era when making super-hero movies was still new and uncharted territory. One of the underlying themes of S1, as far as Donner was concerned, was the notion of 'verisimilitude' (as in making the character and his world as believable and grounded as possible). This more human approach made S1 the ground-breaking movie that it is (as opposed to a campy Superman or cartoony Superman movie that could have been developed instead). The Salkinds just didn't possess the same foresight, sacking Donner during the production of S2. Bringing in Richard Lester didn't affect S2 too much as much of it had already been filmed by Donner. It was S3 that was Lester's first attempt at creating a Superman movie according to his own ideology.

It's not 100% bad. As well as the Superman vs. Superman element praised above there is also some touching interplay between Clark and Lana, and his return to Smallville was handled well overall. Gene Hackman wouldn't work with Lester however, so instead we got Ross Webster as the primary villain (a cheap Lex Luthor cast off) and Richard Pryor totally misused as gullible computer genius Gus Gorman. The slapstick elements are far to much to the fore and the film has no heart overall. I suspect Lester imagined he was being cleverly ironic in his approach. S3 wasn't a flop but was certainly a huge come-down after the first two.

I can't agree with the poster above who prefers S4 in a 'it's-so-bad-it's-funny' way though. S4 is one of the worst films ever made. I even hated it when I first saw it at 13. A Superman movie filmed on an English industrial park and that tries to pass Milton Keynes off as Metropolis. Shudder.

[neonrideraryeh]

I thought 3 was great, I enjoyed it. It had some very funny scenes like when the traffic light men started punching each other.
Also drunk Superman was funny even though it made no sense that Superman could get drunk. You can't really watch it as the same kind of movie as 1/2, you have to watch it as them being kind of silly and then you see how it can be a fun watch. For that traffic light scene alone, it's the best thing ever haha.