Superman (1978 film) father on Earth. "Superman" was originally scheduled to be released in June 1978, the 40th anniversary of "Action Comics 1", which first introduced Superman, but the problems during filming pushed the film back by six months. Editor Stuart Baird reflected, "Filming was finished in October 1978 and it is a miracle we had the film released two months later. Big-budgeted films today tend to take six to eight months." Donner, for his part, wished that he had "had another six months; I would have perfected a lot of things. But at some point, you've gotta turn the picture over." Warner
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Luthors. He places Lenny in Boys Town, telling the priest that Lenny has been under a bad influence, and returns Lex to prison. In 1983, following the mixed-to-negative reaction to "Superman III", Reeve and the producers, Alexander Salkind and his son Ilya, assumed that the "Superman" films had run their course. Reeve was slated to make a cameo in 1984's "Supergirl" but was unavailable; that film was a box-office failure. Two years later, Ilya Salkind sold the "Superman" franchise to Golan and Globus of Cannon Films. According to Jon Cryer, who played Luthor's nephew Lenny, Reeve had taken him aside