His early TV career saw him land bit parts in series such as Minder, The Sweeney and Bergerac, while he also played small parts in major films such as Chariots of Fire, Superman II and Gandhi before the big breakthrough came in Withnail and I.

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He collaborated on the screenplays for the 1974 disaster movie Earthquake, 1980's Superman II and 1984's Christopher Columbus, The Discovery.

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The movie was much-maligned when it opened in 1980, partly because Popeye's guttural mutterings were hard to understand (as they were meant to be), but mainly because the screwy characters and their antic behavior bore no resemblance to such comic-book competition as "Superman II, " which opened the same year.

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