Superman III (1983) on Netflix
Ross Webster blackmails programmer Gus Gorman into a computer scheme to corner world markets. In Smallville for a school reunion, Clark Kent finds Lana Lang there with her son Ricky.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb5.0/1081,220 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes29%
Trailer
Plot summary
Webscoe Industries hires programmer Gus Gorman, who quietly diverts $85,000 from the payroll, which puts him in front of the company's chief executive, Ross Webster. Webster, set on controlling world markets through technology, blackmails Gus into his schemes, aided by his sister Vera and his mistress Lorelei Ambrosia. Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen travel to Smallville for a high school reunion, and Clark spends time with Lana Lang, a friend from his school days whose young son is Ricky. Webster has Gus use the weather satellite Vulcan to wreck Colombia's coffee crop, and Superman scatters the storm. Webster then has Gus synthesize Kryptonite, and when the computer cannot produce the whole formula, Gus substitutes tar.
Cast
- Paul Kaethleras Ricky Lang
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Superman III (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was going to be called Superman vs. Superman until the producers of Kramer vs. Kramer threatened to sue over the title, forcing the change to Superman III.
- Gene Hackman is said to have refused to return as Lex Luthor out of anger at how the Salkinds treated Richard Donner, and Margot Kidder's Lois Lane was reportedly cut to a brief appearance as punishment for criticizing them publicly. Hackman later denied it, saying he was simply busy elsewhere.
- Richard Pryor talked his way into the film by joking on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson that he would like to appear in a Superman picture. The Salkinds paid him $5 million, and afterwards Columbia Pictures signed him for five years at $40 million.
- The missile video-game sequence was farmed out to Atari after Time Warner boss Steve Ross rang Atari chief Ray Kassar. Steve Wright's team spent about $120,000 on it, most of that on hardware, aiming for a deliberately unreal video game of the future rather than realistic graphics.
- Photographing the Atari animation frame by frame took 120 hours for 1,440 frames. Of the full minute of footage that resulted, director Richard Lester used only about 27 seconds.
- Christopher Reeve had signed for seven Superman films, but brought in a lawyer to renegotiate before this one. Producer Pierre Spengler called getting him back contentious, while Ilya Salkind insisted Reeve liked the script and was happy to return.
