Superman has a long history of being a "bad" film. He only brought misfortune to actors. Kirk Elin, the first to star in the legendary role, did not become famous, but, on the contrary, ruined his career. Until 1948, when the film was released, Elin was a highly sought after actor. But then he was no longer taken to any other cinema. The Superman label stuck to him forever. Kirk became seriously ill. All the money he earned went to treatment. But it did not help. With a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, the former superhero was sent to live out his life in a nursing home for actors.
George Reeves, who played in the Superman television series from 1951 to 1957, died under mysterious circumstances. In June 1959, he was found shot in the head in the bedroom of a Beverly Hills mansion. The official version is suicide. However, the actor's mother insisted that he had no reason to die: Reeves became a star and a rich man, and in a few days he was going to get married!
Many years passed before directors took up Superman again. In 1978, Christopher Reeve was invited to play the lead role. The film was a huge success, and nothing bad happened to Reeve. He was even offered to star in three more films about the hero. Maybe the evil gravitating over this plot has lost its power? But, as it turned out, the curse has no statute of limitations. The first to suffer was Riva's partner. In 1988, actress Margot Killer, who played Lois Lane, developed manic-depressive psychosis. And in 1990, Margot got into a car accident. She was partially paralyzed, and the actress spent almost all of her money to pay medical bills.
And for Christopher Reeve, the "hour of reckoning" came in May 1995. An excellent athlete who had been involved in horse riding for a long time, he suddenly fell off his horse and broke his cervical vertebrae … Riva was paralyzed, and the actor spent the remaining nine and a half years of his life in a wheelchair. A little over a year after his death, Christopher's wife also died of transient cancer.
I don’t need your damn fee
Unsurprisingly, finding an actor to star in the latest film - Superman Returns - has proven to be very difficult. Under one pretext or another, all the stars refused the honorary mission - Nicolas Cage, Josh Hartnett, Jude Law, Clan Reeves, Brendan Fraser … The actors were not even seduced by a fee of $ 40 million. Ashton Kutcher said bluntly that he was afraid … The little-known actor Brandon Ruth turned out to be a daredevil. And in 2006 the film was released. It cost Warner Bros. a whopping $ 260 million and just fell short of the budget of the legendary 1963 Cleopatra, which is still considered the most expensive film in the history of cinema. Even the Titanic was cheaper. True, Superman Returns did not have much success with the audience. But the title of "damned" has already begun to justify. His victims were three people who participated in the release of the film at the OUO. One was crippled, having fallen down the stairs, the second was robbed and severely beaten on the street, the third was injured, having hit with all its scope on a transparent, and therefore almost invisible glass door. As for Brandon Root, he seems to be following in the footsteps of Kirk Elin: he still has no new roles.
Note that in this case we are not talking about accidents during the work on the film, without which shooting a picture is rarely done, regardless of its "karma", but about the private fate of people associated with the Superman plot. Mysticism, isn't it? Just a match for the mysterious curse of the Egyptian tombs. You can, of course, not believe in anything like that. And I don’t want to. But facts remain facts. How to explain them? By coincidence? In Hollywood, not only have there been rumors about these films themselves for a long time, but there are also researchers who have identified the top ten and argue with each other only about the serial numbers in the list of "damned". And while analyzing this phenomenon, someone suddenly noticed: and after all "Superman", in which Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder participated, was shot by the same director,who shortly before that worked on one of the most terrible mystical paintings - "The Omen" …
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When lightning strikes twice …
In 1976, Richard Donner embodied on the screen the story of a devil boy who destroys everyone around him. Misfortune fell on the project participants like a horn of plenty. In June 1975, two months before filming began, the performer of the role of the boy's adoptive father, Gregory Peck, had a son shot himself. In September, the actor, in the darkest mood, flew to London to shoot and almost died: in the sky over the Atlantic, lightning struck an airliner. A few weeks later, the executive producer of the film, Mace Neufeld, flew from Los Angeles to the capital of England - lightning struck his plane too! And that was just the beginning. At the hotel where Neufeld was staying with his wife, members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) staged a terrorist attack. A little later, a bomb also exploded in a restaurant where members of the film crew, including Neufeld and Gregory Peck, were dining. And everyone experienced real horror when the plane intended for filming crashed. The filmmakers simply did not have time to arrange the lease of the liner, and at the last moment another client intercepted it, for which he paid: the people on board died … But the most mysterious event happened after the film was released. On Friday 13 (!) August 1976, John Richardson, a special effects consultant, was driving along a quiet Dutch highway with his assistant at night. Suddenly - a blow! Richardson, waking up, turns on his side and sees next to a woman … without a head, who was cut off by the steering wheel, sloping towards the passenger seat. Richardson went cold with horror, because he himself invented a similar death for one of the characters in "The Omen". Looked out of the window at a road sign illuminated by a surviving headlightand there the name of the Dutch village is “Ommen, 66.6 kilometers” … So don't believe in devilry after that!
Bloody harvest
More than one book has been written about the damned Hollywood films in America. And all the authors admitted that they undertook research with the enthusiasm of a healthy skeptic, but as they immersed themselves in the material, they became uncomfortable. Yes, scandalous rumors about the film are his best advertisement. But what about the facts? In 1973, The Exorcist, or The Exorcist, was filmed. The film, directed by William Friedkin, is based on the true story of a priest performing the rite of exorcism. Linda Blair, who played the role of a 12-year-old obsessed, admitted a few years later that she could not have children. Moreover, her film career did not take place, and the actress was being treated for addiction to alcohol and drugs.
Actor Jack McGowran fell seriously ill just a week after he portrayed the death of his character. Soon, Jack actually died. Max von Sydow, who played the role of a priest, had his brother died during filming.
Actor Jason Miller, the second priest in the film, has a five-year-old daughter killed in a car accident. And two of William Friedkin's assistants - his secretary and assistant - both ended up in the hospital with a mental disorder.
Until now, no one has found a reasonable explanation for all these tragedies. And the former skeptics become doubters: what if, after all, it is impossible to open the door to the abode of the supernatural with impunity?
The list of the most unlucky films includes two more titles - "Poltergeist" and "Rosemary's Baby". The Poltergeist trilogy, filmed in the 1980s, took the lives of four actors: three died of a sudden illness, and the fourth actress died at the hands of a jealous admirer.
"Rosemary's Baby" by Roman Polanski became a real curse for the director himself. His 1968 film tells the scary story of a woman whose husband arranged for her to be pregnant by Satan himself. A year after the film was released, Polanski's wife, actress Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered. She was expecting a baby …