Superman (Salkind films) adopted a high protein diet. He added of muscle to his thin frame. He later made even higher gains for "Superman III" (1983), though for "" (1987), he decided it would be healthier to focus more on cardiovascular workouts. One of the reasons Reeve could not work out as much for "" was an emergency appendectomy he had in June 1986. Reeve was never a Superman or comic book fan, though he had watched "Adventures of Superman" starring George Reeves. Reeve found the role offered a suitable challenge because it was a dual role. He said, "there must be some
Superman in film Before the failure of "", Cannon Films considered producing a fifth film with Albert Pyun as director. Cannon's bankruptcy resulted in the film rights reverting to Ilya and Alexander Salkind. Ilya Salkind wrote the story for "Superman V" (also known as "Superman: The New Movie") with "Superboy" writers Cary Bates and Mark Jones in the early-1990s. The story had Superman dying and resurrecting in the shrunken, bottled Krypton city of Kandor. The premise of Superman's death and rebirth coincidentally predated "The Death of Superman". Salkind, Bates and Jones developed two drafts of the script, with Christopher Reeve set to reprise