From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.

I was going to walk away for a million bucks. I wasn't going to fuck up Superman. He was really

some kind of a childhood fulfillment. Director Richard Donner was thrilled when he was offered

a million dollars to direct the original Superman movie in the 1970s.

But he hated the script, and when the producers refused to let him hire a new screenwriter,

Donner put it all on the line.

Today we revisit our conversation with the veteran filmmaker as he tells us the crazy backstory of the first comic book blockbuster.

But first on the news banter,

2016 is officially in the books, What Lies Ahead? Stick around. It's the business from KCRW.

I am joined by my partners in banter, Matt Bellany of the Hollywood Reporter, and Michael Schneider of Indie Wire and Variety.

So as we are talking right now, it is not quite 2017. We're very close. Happy New Year ahead of time, everybody.

We had quite a year this past year. We're going to try and figure out the future a little bit. I think starting with AT&T Time Warner. In terms of the studio,

I mean, I've reported this, Peter Chernin, who used to be the number two person at Fox and

was basically, if his last name were Murdoch, he would have been

the heir, but it wasn't, so he moved on. He has been very close to and involved in deals with AT&T.

I have to believe, and I'm told that if this deal does close, and we're going to, I think,

predict that it will, because these things tend to happen and the argument will be that they need scale and somebody will buy it. I think predict that it will because these things tend to happen and the argument will be that

they need scale and somebody will buy it. I think Peter Trunham becomes a huge player at Time Warner

on the content side. He's got so much experience. You know, he's, as I said, he was at Fox. He was

on the movie side. He's a guy that people have been chasing, you know, his name is in the mix for

things like a Disney job, that kind of thing. So he's considered a super desirable piece of

manpower, and I think he'll put his stamp on that. It is interesting, because if you look at the

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