Colin Chilvers, Visual Effects Veteran and Oscar Recipient for ‘Superman,’ Dies at 79

Hollywood visual effects pioneer Colin Chilvers, who earned a Special Achievement Academy Award in 1979 for making Christopher Reeve as Superman fly, has died. He was 79.

Chilvers died Tuesday in Fort Erie, Ontario, according to his nephew, Chris Corbould, whose own VFX credits include Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and James Bond franchise movies like No Time to Die and Spectre.

“I am forever indebted to Colin as he instigated the start of my own career in special effects when he invited me onto the set of Tommy in 1974 when I was 16 years old and inspired me to make a career in the film industry,” Corbould told The Hollywood Reporter.

Chilvers was a director of special effects for Richard Donner’s 1978 classic Superman, which was shot partly in Niagara Falls and starred Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. Chilvers in a 2019 interview with the 15 Minutes With… website recalled his work on Superman taking place during an pioneering era in Hollywood far from today’s computer-driven realm.

“You have to remember, the industry was decades away from the special effects that we have today. There were no computers, no CGI, no digital effects. Everything we did back then, we had to improvise. And the whole world was watching. Everyone wanted to go into the theater and believe that Superman was really flying. We had to improvise. There were a lot of tricks.  It was quite a challenge, but the result was something to be proud of,” he recalled.

He received his industry recognition from Steve Martin at the 51st Academy Awards. “It all seemed so unreal. Of course, I’d dreamed about winning an Academy Award some day, but part of me never thought the dream would come true,” Chilvers recalled in his 2019 memoir Believing a Man Can Fly: Memories of a Life in Special Effects and Film.

The Oscar led to work on Superman 2, Condorman and Superman 3 and later VFX credits as a special effects coordinator or director for Marvel’s X-Men, Harrison Ford’s K-19: The Widowmaker and Vin Diesel’s The Pacifier. 

Born in London in 1945 to parents Cornelius and Kate Chilvers, he trained at the Hornsey College of Art before working as a trainee animation director and then as an assistant in the special effects department of MGM’s Inspector Clouseau in 1968 and The Battle of Britain a year later.  

After VFX work on 1970s cult hits like Tommy, Lisztomania, Rocky Horror and 200 Motels, Chilvers crossed the Atlantic to direct the special effects for Superman. Other notable work included in 1986 directing Michael Jackson’s music video for Smooth Criminal, where Chilvers had to design and produce the King of Pop’s gravity-defying lean during a dance sequence.

For that, Chilvers, ever the problem-solver, used simple piano wire. “It was the staple of many special effects during the ‘70s, and it worked perfectly in the Smooth Criminal video. Sometimes the best tricks aren’t the newest.  Sometimes you rely on the tried and true,” Chilvers recounted in his 2019 15 Minutes With… interview.

The music video led Chilvers to work with Jackson on his Moonwalker film. During the 1980s, he also worked in Toronto on projects like the two-hour TV pilot of War of the Worlds — orchestrating a Martian invasion — and then The Walls of Jericho, in addition to hundreds of TV commercials.

Having worked widely in North America and Europe, Chilvers was a member of the American Academy of Film and Television Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the Directors Guild of America and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees 873.

Chilvers also helped get his four British nephews — Chris, Ian, Paul and Neil Corbould — into the family business as they each became special effects vets. In 2022, three of the brothers were shortlisted for Oscars in VFX categories for different movies.

And their sister, Gail, runs the SFX company for Neil Corbould, who won Oscars for his work on Gladiator and Gravity. He also earned BAFTA awards for The Day After Tomorrow, The Fifth Element, Saving Private Ryan and Gravity.