When you think of iconic movie directors from the 1980’s we tend to look at Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, perhaps Brian DePalma and Robert Zemeckis. Yet, there is a strong argument to look at the director of The Goonies and Lethal Weapon, as well as the person who gave us the most perfect superhero movie before superhero movies were cool, one Richard Donner.
He cut his teeth as director working on tv shows many of which are now considered to be cult and innovative. Shows like The Twilight Zone, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Kojak and The Streets of San Francisco. His first movie was The Omen, and it was while prepping for the sequel that he was approached to direct Superman.
The last successful comic book adaptation had been Batman in the 1960’s. A wonderful and surreal tv show which had a very camp motif and some beautifully over the top performances. Donner wanted Superman to be different. What he created was almost a template for any superhero origin story and his film has continued to be an influence to movie makers today. Superman was released in 1978 to huge acclaim, yet Donner was unceremoniously removed from the sequel even though he had already shot half of it.
It is testament to his talent that he was able to go from directing the Spielberg produced The Goonies, a movie about and starring kids in an Indiana Jones-lite adventure, to the adult thriller of Lethal Weapon, a movie which really cemented Mel Gibson as the charismatic leading man.
Action movies were hot in the 80’s, yet the brawn and muscle of the early part of the decade was replaced by the more vulnerable cop in the guise of Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Gibson’s Riggs is another along this line.
It is another testament to the talent of the man when he morphed Lethal Weapon from an adult thriller with violence and sex into a more universal action thriller for Lethal Weapon 2. By giving the story more humour without removing any character faults and thrills, he created a franchise which is still going today. He made four of those movies, and certainly the first three are excellent entertainment.
The transformation of the series worked and though the first movie was considered a hit, taking $65m at the US box office, the sequel took a huge $147m just two years later, sitting third in the charts for the year behind Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Tim Burton’s Batman, itself influenced by the original Superman.
In 1994 Donner and Gibson teamed up again for another franchise potential in the form of western caper Maverick. While this was successful, it did not spawn the same excitement and has yet to be picked up for any kind of reboot.
What I love about Richard Donner is his diversity. He seems to have enormous respect throughout the industry but does not come with star wattage of Spielberg. For someone to follow a what is a crowd-pleasing kids movie with a dark sexual thriller certainly gives him an edge on most directors, yet his movies carry humour and charm and he appears to fall in love with the characters that he works with and moulds. He is a wonderful storyteller with a great eye and you can feel the adrenalin as you watch the majority of his movies.
Apart from a wonderful catalogue of work he did give us one other gem; he plucked from theatre a young man and turned him into one of the most iconic figures in movie history. He gave us Christopher Reeve as Superman.
Richard Donner is a genius, long may his movies be remembered.
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