Gene Hackman’s favourite comic book character of all time: “A fan of Superman? No”
While there’s no shortage of actors and filmmakers who’ve signed on for comic book adaptations because they love the characters, Gene Hackman wasn’t one of them. Instead, he was motivated by one thing, and one thing only: a big, steaming pile of cold, hard cash.
What’s funny is that, despite being one of American cinema’s greatest-ever actors and a man who lived up to his intense onscreen reputation by refusing to take any shit from his co-stars or directors, the two-time Academy Award winner has starred in an equal amount, and in some cases more, superhero blockbusters than people who’ve become a great deal more synonymous with the genre.
Hackman played Lex Luthor in three of Christopher Reeve’s four Superman films. That’s the same number of times that Michael Keaton has played Batman, Tobey Maguire suited up as Spider-Man, and, excluding a post-credits cameo in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam, equal to Henry Cavill’s appearances as the ‘Man of Steel’, and those three actors got asked about those roles a lot more than he was quizzed on his.
Of course, that’s because Hackman’s filmography was filled to the brim with powerhouse performances in critical, commercial, and awards season favourites, and chewing on the scenery as a megalomaniacal villain in a trio of light and frothy fantastical flicks hardly competes with his work in the likes of The French Connection, Unforgiven, The Conversation, Mississippi Burning, or The Royal Tenenbaums.
In an interview with Todd Webb, shortly before his third and final outing as Luthor went into production, Hackman explained why he was returning to the franchise after sitting out Superman III. “Actually, it was a terrific role this time,” he claimed. “It was bigger than the first two, and it was great fun. I have a new Lex’s lair at the top of the Empire State Building. It was just a great time.”
Anyone familiar with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace will know that it’s deservedly regarded as not just one of the worst comic book capers ever made, but one of the worst to ever come out of Hollywood. Hackman got to pull double duty as the recurring villain and the voice of the laughably ineffective villain, Nuclear Man, and you get the sneaking suspicion that he was lying through his teeth.
After all, he admitted he only made the first Superman for the money, and after falling out with the producers, there was realistically only one thing that could have twisted his arm, especially when he also copped to having never been enthused by the source material. “A fan of Superman? No,” he declared. “I liked Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.”
As the name would imply, the character is basically a female Tarzan, raised in the jungle by a native tribe after her father is accidentally poisoned, and she’s been a fixture of comic books since 1938. Nobody thought to ask Hackman if he was interested in starring in her 1984 feature-length bow to capitalise on his fandom, though, not that he was guaranteed to say yes.
If he had, he’d have appeared in a box office bomb that earned five Razzie nominations, including ‘Worst Picture’ and ‘Worst Actress’ for its lead, Tanya Roberts.
