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 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