Producer Ilya Salkind Missing
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 2nd, 2011
The producer who has had a passion to make a movie based on the old Hammer Studio’s film The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas has gone missing.
TMZ is reporting that Ilya Salkind (Ilya Juan Salkind Dominguez), 63, the famed producer responsible for bringing “Superman” to the movies in 1978, has been reported “missing” in Mexico City by the people closest to him.
Salkind, who is Mexican, was last seen at his estate in Mexico on January 30th, Sunday. He was visiting the town of Tepoztlán. On Monday, his friends filed a missing persons report with Mexican authorities, TMZ said.
Salkind secured the rights for a live-action Superman movie back in 1974 — and served as Executive Producer on Superman I, II, III.
In a May 11, 2006, interview in Australia’s Moviehole, super producer Ilya Salkind noted that a then-current project was “a new film based on the mythic The Abominable Snowman.”
This was important to hear then as it was the first since 2003 that The Abominable Snowman was going to be made.
In a press release on April 28, 2003, Emmett/Furla Films and Ilya Salkind (Superman) announced that they have joined forces to develop and produce a feature film entitled The Abominable Snowman. Gale Anne Hurd (The Hulk) was also in negotiations to produce alongside Salkind, Emmett and Furla.
The Abominable Snowman is a time tested and thought provoking title that Ilya Salkind has had a passion for since 1993.
In 2003, Ilya Salkind said: “Ten years ago I envisioned The Abominable Snowman to follow in the blockbuster franchise tradition of Superman and The Three Musketeers. Now, with today’s seemingly unlimited technologies in filmmaking, the time is right.
Reportedly, Salkind’s The Abominable Snowman is based on the old Hammer Studio’s film The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas.
Ilya Salkind was born August 27, 1947. At the age of one, Salkind was photographed sitting on the lap of Zsa Zsa Gabor. His grandfather, Mikhail Salkind, was one of the pioneers of silent films and produced Joyless Street (1925), featuring then-relatively-unknown Greta Garbo in her first major role. Afterwards, Mikhail, along with Ilya’s own father, Alexander Salkind, joined their forces to supervise many successful films, from Orson Welles’ The Trial (1962) to Abel Gance’s Austerlitz (1959).
Beginning in 1969, Ilya Salkind became the third generation of this legendary movie-making dynasty. He and Alexander made numerous films, starting with the international box office hits The Three Musketeers (1973) and its 1974 follow-up, The Four Musketeers films, the first instance of which a major motion picture and its immediate sequel were shot simultaneously.
International intrigue has sometimes surrounded Salkind. Some parts of Superman, for example, were suppose to be filmed in Italy. But Marlon Brando (cast as Jor-El) could not go to Rome as there was still a warrant out for his arrest because of Brando’s appearance in Last Tango in Paris, due to a sexual obscenity claim.
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Loren Coleman no longer writes for Cryptomundo. His archived posts remain here at Cryptomundo.
No word about this in the on-line Mexican media.
I’ll keep you guys updated.
Ilya is Mexican – American he’s a US resident and has been for a long time.