00:00It is an incredible honor to be here tonight to celebrate Richard Donner for any number of reasons
00:06and to stand here with Jeff after so many years together.
00:10We have some stories.
00:12A lot of stories.
00:14There are any number of reasons that it's an honor, not the least of which that Dick and his wife
00:20Lauren
00:20gave me my first unpaid job in Hollywood, my first part-time job in Hollywood,
00:27my first full-time job in Hollywood, and my first producing credit, of which it's the only reason I'm standing
00:34here.
00:35The other reason is because the films Dick made inspired me to even want to go down that track.
00:42And, of course, in particular, Superman the movie is still to this day the archetype of the perfect superhero film
00:52origin story.
00:53And we watch it before we make almost any one of our films.
00:56And that's been the case for the past 17 years since I left the fold to go work for Marvel.
01:03There was a word.
01:04Dick has a very good vocabulary.
01:05And there was a word that I was never able to pronounce, but I always understood, which was verisimilitude.
01:12And he used that word while making Superman 1.
01:16And I first learned that not because it's hanging above Dick's office, which it was for many years,
01:22but because I saw him talking about it in the ABC making of Superman special when I was a kid.
01:28And it basically means be truthful.
01:31Honor the source material.
01:32Believe in it.
01:33Take it seriously.
01:34And that is what we strive to do.
01:36And Jon Favreau, on the very first Marvel Studios production, copied that and put it above his doorway.
01:42And the other thing that Dick did, and I'm so honored to be here and standing here with Kevin, it's
01:49just so wild and great.
01:52But the other thing that really inspired me about Superman is when I worked for Dick, I would, I do
01:58everything.
01:58I would research hot tubs, planes, you know, also gas his car up, which I'll talk about later.
02:07And I'd also go into this, he had this giant bathroom at Warner Brothers.
02:12And it was basically a storage room.
02:13He just threw all sorts of trash in there.
02:15And I was like this guy, creepy guy going through his trash.
02:18And I found this Superman script that was, it was like 300 pages.
02:22And I, I pulled it out and I go, Dick, what is this?
02:24And he said, oh, that's the first script from Superman that they sent me.
02:28I couldn't believe it.
02:29I read through it.
02:30Kevin and I looked at it and they had a scene in it where Superman's looking for Lex Uther and
02:33he flew down and is a bald guy.
02:36And he turns around and it's Tully Savalas and he's like, who loves you, baby?
02:40And, and I was like, this is crazy.
02:42And Dick said, you know, and he's told the story a lot, how the Salkinds called him and said,
02:47we're going to give you a million dollars to direct this movie.
02:49But it was really as much as Dick likes money.
02:51I think is really more about, he said, I think you're going to give me a million dollars.
02:57But then I got the script and it was so terrible.
02:59He said, I have to save Superman.
03:02And, and he did.
03:04And that's why he took it because he loved the character so much as American icon.
03:09And he had so much passion for it.
03:10He said, I can't let this happen.
03:13And, and he made the greatest superhero film still ever.
03:17I know he's a little fan of Koronk.
03:17Now, he has this big fan of King of Target.
03:17And, don't be afraid of him because he was ghostly pretty.
03:17And that's me, when he's, if we make aят oría where it's going.
