Did Mario puzo write Superman

Answer 1

Yes he did. Initally, Ilya Salkind, (son of Alexander Salkind) hired Alfred Bester to write a first-draft screenplay. The senior Salkind, however, wanted a bigger name attached to his ambitous project. William Goldman, who had won an Oscar for his work on the 1969 hit Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (he would receive a second in 1977 for All the Presidents Men), was approached. Goldman was a comic-book fanatic and wanted to write the movie, however, after meeting with Ilya Salkind & producer Pierre Spengler, Goldman declined any involvement. By the early-seventies, Superman had been published in comic books for forty years. There was so much material for Goldman to choose from and he was genuinely unsure of which story to adapt for the screen debut of "The Man of Steel".

Mario Puzo had finished his work on "The Godfather II" when he was approached to write "Superman". He was "hot property" at this time (late 1974/early 1975. Under instruction from the Salkinds, Puzo delivered enough material for two feature films. It is rumored that Puzo's first draft, delivered on Tuesday 8th July 1975, was almost 500 pages long.

Early October 1975 saw the submission of Puzo's "Second Draft" and the end of his involvment in the "Superman" project.

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, Puzo's "Superman" scripts are unavailable as a result of legal reasons.

A clause in his contract forbid the publication of film/media tie-in products such as novelisations & comic-adaptations.