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Showing posts with label Ilya Salkind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ilya Salkind. Show all posts

Monday, March 19, 2012

"Boys of Steel: The Movie"

No, I have no big announcement. But this 1/18/12 USA Today article boosted my hope that, before long, I might be able to say "They are (finally) making a movie about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the co-creators of Superman":

The article points out the recent flood of period pieces from Hollywood. Since 2008, I have pitched Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (which, incidentally, also made it into USA Today) to select movie producers. Some were intrigued but none made offers. The two most recurring reasons:

  1. It would be difficult to obtain the needed permissions from DC Comics.
  2. Period films are expensive to make and are not likely to be mainstream hits.

I understand the first concern (though certain Hollywood heavyweights have the clout to get it done), but this article deflates the second. Period films based on true stories nominated for 2012 Oscars included The Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn, War Horse, J. Edgar, and A Dangerous Method, not to mention fictional period films including The Artist, The Help, Hugo, and Alfred Nobbs.

So why not My Week with Jerry and Joe? Red Capes? The Geek’s Speech? It doesn't get much more mainstream than Superman.

Realistically speaking, potential complications involve more than DC Comics. In March 2012, a friend who works in Los Angeles reported the following:

I recently met Ilya Salkind [a producer on the Christopher Reeve Superman movies] at a comic convention. When I asked the status of his Siegel/Shuster film, it took him a full minute to register what I was asking. He then rolled his eyes and said it's dead due to all the legal troubles with the families.

Still, nothing seems insurmountable considering people have already overcome challenges to make biopics of other innovative and/or literary types, some obscure; to name but a few: Flash of Genius, Finding Neverland, Miss Potter, Shadowlands, A Beautiful Mind, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

I remain convinced that we will one day see Siegel and Shuster on the big screen. Their story is at once inspirational and heartbreaking and resonates even with people who have never read a comic book. I've seen it time and again at presentations I've given about them nationwide.

Plus Jerry and Joe changed the game for Hollywood so the least Hollywood could do in return is give them their time in the spotlight.

Calling Ron Howard...
Posted 7:12 AM Labels , , , ,
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Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Superman returns, Batman begins, Nobleman natters

Today I went to a Superman/Batman double feature.

feature 1: Superman

Superman: The Movie (1978) was produced by father and son Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Salkind senior passed away in 1997. Ilya currently has a film company named for himself. In 2006, I contacted him while researching, ironically, my Batman/Bill Finger project. (Bill's second wife told me that Bill had been asked to fly to California to take a shot at writing a script for a Superman movie; turns out she was probably thinking of the 1960s Filmation cartoons, at least one of which Bill did write.)

Recently, I contacted the Ilya Salkind Company again, this time to ask what happened to the Siegel and Shuster biopic I saw announced on their site last year but which had since been taken down. Today Ilya's assistant kindly responded and told me that the film is back on the site, though on the back burner in terms of development. I didn't ask why it had been taken down, though I wanted to. It's obviously none of my business.

Intermission 

Bathroom.
Moist wipe for hands.
Twizzlers.

feature 2: Batman

Last Friday, I heard from the congenial producer of a documentary about Bob Kane to be packaged with this summer's animated DVD Batman: Gotham Knight. He'd learned online that I have Bill Finger photos beyond the only two that are continually republished. He wants to give his viewers something they haven't seen before—props for that—and asked if he could use any of the photos I've gathered in the film.

For about half an hour today, we spoke about how we might help each other. In exchange for use of the photos, he offered me screen credit and a spot on their Comic-Con panel (both bat-cool), but I asked for something else instead. We both doubt he'll be able to wrangle it due to the delicate nature of Bill Finger's status at DC, but if so, then you could see at least one of the new Finger photos on the copper screen (or whatever the TV equivalent of "silver screen" is). If not, you'll see them anyway, here and possibly elsewhere.

Also bear in mind that these are technically not my photos. Living people sent them to me on good faith. They've given permission for me to use them for my book (which this blog is an extension of), but for any purpose beyond that, I'd go back to them for clearance.

In the end, though, most of them want what I want: to coax Bill Finger out of the shadows at long last.
Posted 10:57 PM Labels , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Searching for Jerry Siegel

I wrote the first draft of Boys of Steel the picture book on May 3, 2004, but that wasn't the first format I envisioned for it. Ten years earlier, I began the process of writing a screenplay about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

I only began the process. I never began the writing.

My first step in 1994 was trying to contact Jerry, who was then still alive at age 80. I think I would have had better luck contacting him if he were already dead. I have no séance experience, but it would have been easier to learn how to conduct one than to reach the Siegel family in those pre-Internet days.

I wrote a letter to a fine man named Dennis Dooley, who wrote the meticulously researched introductory essay in a little gem of a book called Superman at Fifty: The Persistence of a Legend. (Both its title and subtitle were followed by exclamation points, but I can't bear to use them here.) He responded with a letter dated 11/11/94 in which he wrote "I don't [think] anybody (including the mighty CBS) has had any luck in getting to Jerry for some years now. ... I'm afraid I can't be too encouraging." As some of you may already know, Jerry and Joe were involved with decades of litigation with DC Comics over Superman, so it was almost certain that even if I did reach Jerry, he would not have been able to comment.

So that one honest letter derailed my passion project. But only for ten years.

And since Jerry died in 1996 (four years after Joe), I will never know if I would have had their blessing, if not their participation. As for their families, that's a story for another post.

Sometime last year, I learned that Ilya Salkind, one of the producers of Superman: The Movie, was planning a biopic on Siegel and Shuster. The teaser info on his site has since been taken down. (4/9/08 addendum: It's back up. 2/13/14 addendum: It's down again.)

Changing subjects: I was in Reno this past weekend. I gave ten presentations in three days, and the Reno Gazette-Journal kindly covered it. That link will probably go dead before long, so click through while the clicking through is good. That first photograph is the first time the book cover has appeared in non-pixelated print. If you're going to read this blog, you'll have to get used to meaningless statistics like that.
Posted 1:19 AM Labels , , , , , ,
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