David and Leslie Newman

[Kamdan]

Anyone ever want to hear more from them and their involvement in scripting Superman? I know that David has since passed on, but Leslie is still around and dropped a couple of lines in one of the DVD documentaries, but I always felt like that wasn't enough. Tom Mankiewicz did do major contributions to the script to take out the more "camp" elements," even going as far as deleting the characters of Albert and Jak-El, but they very much deserve credit for their contributions to the script, since it's very much the story and some of their scenes were mostly untouched, like Lois interviewing Superman.

As I recall, Puzo's original script had Clark being a TV reporter, as he was in the current comics, but the Newmans restored him as newspaper reporter. Still, they really sunk low for Superman III, but they did as they were told, since apparently Ilya Salkind's initial idea was axed by Warners and DC Comics, while the "Richard Pryor in a Superman movie" idea was green lit.

I'm hoping one day there will be a more expensive interview with Leslie Newman to get her thoughts on their controbutions and thoughts on Mankiewicz's rewrite. It kind of reminds me how the first DVD documentaries were very one-sided in reguard to the Salkinds, but a lot of stuff was cleared up once they got their say in the matter.

[Gandy]

I spoke to David Newman in 2000 and he was offended that I didn't give him the recognition for STM and S2. In hindsight, they deserved some kudos, because the Puzo draft was not good - Clark was a TV reporter, I think, and Lois was weather reporter. That's what I remember him telling me. At least they steered into the right direction. Mankiewicz deserved his credit, making it possible to film.

[crazy_asian_man]

I spoke to David Newman in 2000 and he was offended that I didn't give him the recognition for STM and S2.

How could he be offended if there's was no Puzo script available for comparison?

All I know is: definitely thought the Mank script felt epic, compared to the Newman script, which kept on tacking on things that lowered it more to sitcom level.

[Deleted]

Dude wrote the "Smooth Crimnal" segment of "Moonwalker." That's something.