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10 unusual facts about Richard Donner


Harvey Spencer Stephens

According to Omen director Richard Donner, during an interview with AMC, Stephens got the part after he beat up Donner and punched him in the testicles, at Donner's urging.

Mario Puzo

Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for Richard Donner's Superman which, at the time, also included the plot for Superman II, as they were originally written as one film.

Pierre Arditi

Arditi dubbed Christopher Reeve on the French-language version of the three first Superman films by Richard Donner and Richard Lester.

Richard Donner

It starred Mel Gibson as a widowed narcotics detective with a suicidal bent "who breaks every rule for the sheer joy of it."

The film was a violent and popular supernatural thriller that starred Gregory Peck as a wealthy American ambassador to England whose adopted son, born of a Jackal, turns out to be the Antichrist.

Donner directed six films starring Mel Gibson overall, creating a Lethal Weapon franchise with 3 sequels, the last one being Lethal Weapon 4, released in 1998.

One of Donner's assistants in the late 1990s was comic book scribe Geoff Johns.

After the first film's successful release in December 1978, Donner was offered the director's role a second time, but demanded that producer Pierre Spengler be removed from the project.

Teaser campaign

An early example of the teaser trailer was the one for the 1978 Superman film by Richard Donner.

Todd Walton

The film, with a screenplay by Barry Levinson, was directed by Richard Donner and starred John Savage, David Morse, and Diana Scarwid, who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Louise.


Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes

Presented in Action Comics #858-863 (Late December 2007 – May 2008), this arc marked Geoff Johns' debut as a solo writer on Action, having previously written alongside Kurt Busiek and Richard Donner.