Superman (1978 film) finish writing duties. George MacDonald Fraser was later hired to do some work on the script, but he says he did little. Their script was submitted in July 1976, and carried a camp tone, including a cameo appearance by Telly Savalas as his "Kojak" character. The scripts for "Superman" and "Superman II" were now at over 400 pages combined. Pre-production started at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, with sets starting construction and flying tests being unsuccessfully experimented. "In Italy," producer Ilya Salkind remembered, "we lost about $2 million [on flying tests]." Marlon Brando found out he could not film in Italy
Superman in film At this point in production, Warner Bros had spent $30 million on developing the film. Burton, citing various differences with Peters and the studio, said, "I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don't really want to be working with." Disappointed by the lack of progress on the film's production, aspiring screenwriter/comic book fan Alex Ford was able to have a script of his (titled "Superman: The Man of Steel") accepted at the studio's offices in September 1998. Ford pitched his idea for a film series consisting of seven installments,