12. Christopher Reeve Was Supposed To Cameo In Supergirl's Movie
Following the success of Superman's movies, it was initially thought that the Supergirl spinoff had the potential to do just as well. The studio were so confident that they spent over $1 million on the opening credits alone, perhaps explaining why Supergirl was considered a massive failure when it went on to gross only $14 million in North America. Would Supergirl have done better had Superman made a cameo appearance? That was originally the plan as Christopher Reeve was lined up to reprise his role as the Man of Steel in the movie. Unfortunately, an apparent scheduling conflict (or the fact that he just read the script) meant that he became unavailable at the last minute, leading to Superman showing up only as a photograph in Supergirl's movie. He also had a very minor presence due to John Williams' iconic score making a brief appearance at one point. Supergirl was pretty much always doomed from the start though. The failure of Superman III led to Warner Bros. not wanting to release Supergirl at all, so they passed it on to Tri-Star who sent it straight to VHS internationally and cut the movie down from 138 minutes to 105 for a US theatrical release after negative reactions from test screenings. Superman cameo or not, it was destined to fail from the start it seems.