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 (1978 film) He also refused to memorize his dialogue, so cue cards were compiled across the set. Fellow Oscar winner Hackman was cast as Lex Luthor days later. The filmmakers made it a priority to shoot all of Brando's and Hackman's footage "because they would be committed to other films immediately." Though the Salkinds felt that Puzo had written a solid story for the two-part film, they deemed his scripts too long and so hired Robert Benton and David Newman for rewrite work. Benton became too busy directing "The Late Show", so David's wife Leslie was brought in to help her husband