Superman: The Movie (1978)
>Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Peckinpah, William Friedkin, John Guillermin, Peter Yates, Ronald Neame, Robert Aldrich, Norman Jewison, Mark Robson and Richard Lester were approached to direct the movie before Guy Hamilton was hired. He dropped out shortly afterwards and was replaced by Richard Donner.
>Producers Ilya Salkind, Alexander Salkind and Pierre Spengler planned for SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II to be filmed back-to-back. Mario Puzo wrote a borderline unfilmmable 550 pages script with an overtly campy tone, which Donner disliked. Tom Mankiewicz rewrote the entire script at Donner's behest, but was denied credit by the Writers Guild of America. Donner then credited him as a creative consultant so his contribution would be recognized.
>Puzo's draft featured Clark Kent and Lois Lane as television reporters; two addition evil Kryptonian, mad scientist Jax-Ur and psychotic prankster Jak-El; an additional bumbling sidekick to Lex Luthor named "Albert", who'd be Otis' brother; and a cameo appearance by Kojak, played by Telly Savalas, meeting Lex Luthor at a subway station and offering him a lollipop.
>Donner partially shot SUPERMAN II before convincing Spengler and the Salkinds to focus on completing SUPERMAN, since a cliffhanger ending wouldn't accomplish anything without a succesful first movie.
>In early drafts, Superman would divert Lex Luthor's nuclear missile to space, where it would accidentally free General Zod, Ursa and Non from the Phantom Zone and lead them to Earth. When Donner persuaded the producers to let him complete SUPERMAN as a standalone movie, he used the concept of Superman turning back time and changing the past, originally slated for SUPERMAN II, to give the movie a proper ending.