Condorman (1981) on Netflix
PG19811h 30mActionAdventureComedy
Comic book artist Woody Wilkins insists his hero Condorman could exist for real, so he builds a flying suit and tests it off the Eiffel Tower. In Istanbul he meets Natalia.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on Prime
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix2.1/5
- IMDb5.7/105,842 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes27%
Trailer
Plot summary
Woody Wilkins draws a comic book hero called Condorman, and he insists that everything in his stories could really happen. Wearing a flying suit of his own making, he jumps from the Eiffel Tower, and the test lands him in the Seine. Harry, a CIA file clerk he knows, then asks him to handle what looks like a simple civilian paper swap in Istanbul. There Woody meets Natalia Rambova, and when attackers break up the exchange he drives them off, introducing himself as Condorman, a top American agent. Natalia asks that Condorman be the one sent to help her leave the Soviet Union, and Woody takes the job once the agency promises him gadgets built from his own designs.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Condorman (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Special effects director Colin Chilvers, who had worked on the first two Superman films starring Christopher Reeve, shot Condorman's effects at the same place, Pinewood Studios, reusing the Superman equipment; he had to make a new set of molds because the one used by Reeve would not fit Michael Crawford.
- French stunt driver Rémy Julienne, who had already coordinated car chases for The Italian Job and several James Bond films, oversaw Condorman's car chases and stunts, insisting a good chase must feel fresh rather than repeat what audiences had already seen a hundred times.
- Chilvers imposed a strict gag order on his 12-person effects crew, forbidding them from ever revealing how the film's effects were achieved, arguing that explaining the tricks would only spoil audiences' enjoyment.
- On a roughly $14 million budget, Condorman flopped so badly that Disney reportedly lost $9.5 million on it, and the film was one of several box-office failures that dragged down the studio's financial results in 1981.
- The film was slightly more racy than Disney normally produced: then-president Ron Miller said the Barbara Carrera character was “the sexiest in Disney's history”.
- After Disney acquired Marvel Comics in 2009, Amazing Spider-Man editor Stephen Wacker pushed to have the character Condorman folded into the Marvel Universe.
- Condorman was not an original story - the film was inspired by The Game of X, a novel by Robert Sheckley that was published in 1965.
