Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

With the release of Superman Returns this summer, I had anticipated devoting an entire post to reviewing the film on this blog. But after seeing the new Bryan Singer film this month, I had decided to pass. You must understand that I saw the original 1978 film, Superman: The Movie 22 times in the theaters. Most of those viewings were at the Fox Movie Theater in center city Philadelphia. The Fox was one of the last true big-screen movie palaces in Philadelphia. It was torn down only three years after Superman played there. I was 12 years old and had never seen a film on a big-screen like that. The Fox had one of those old Cinemascope screens that projected a 70mm print film larger than it did on a average movie theater screen. I was blown away by the film. I was not a comic book fan, and my only prior knowledge of Superman was the old 50s TV series starring George Reeves. When I sat down in the Fox theater on December 24, 1978, and saw those opening credits zoom out across the screen I was in awe. Coupled with that marvelous John Williams score blasting away in Dolby Digital sound, I thought I had died and gone to movie heaven. The film was of an epic-like proportion. Stars like Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Glenn Ford, Trevor Howard, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Margot Kidder and of course a newcomer named Christopher Reeve, created a fantasy world that truly captured the imagination of my 12 year old mind. The film's director, Richard Donner had one word that described his take on the material he was bringing to the screen: verisimilitude. The film's tag line on all the posters read "You'll believe a man can fly!" And Donner's insistence on verisimilitude -making the story seem as real as possible no matter how unbelievable- had payed off. Bryan Singer who brought us X-Men to the big-screen tried to recapture that same Donner-like quality in his film Superman Returns. Early scenes in the film capture the hometown feel of Clark Kent's Kansas boyhood as did Donner back in '78, and the first big super rescue of Lois Lane from a crashing plane is a nice homage to the original film's helicopter sequence. But as Superman Returns drags along it gets bogged down in dark, almost depressing sequences that resemble today's brooding comic book heroes and not the upbeat Superman that Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created. It certainly beats Superman III and IV, less successful sequels that all but buried the franchise over 20 years ago. Which brings us to this postings title: Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. While Donner was making the original Superman film, his original budget doubled from 22 million to 44 million. Donner had actually filmed 80 percent of the film's sequel in hopes of releasing it the following year. When Superman: The Movie premiered in December of 1978, the film's blockbuster success was to be enjoyed by all but Donner. Donner and producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind had clashed over budget and direction of the film's sequel and Donner was replaced by Richard Lester who had directed the profitable Three Musketeer films for the Salkinds. Lester who was quoted saying that he did not want to do "the David Lean thing"(referring to Donner's original take on the material) ended up reshooting much of the film adding a more slapstick comic book style of humor. About 30 percent of what Donner shot ended up in the theatrical version of the film released in America in 1981, but combined with the Lester footage the movie at times seemed disjointed. Although Superman II was successful, fans of the original were upset and always hoped of a reissue of Donner's original sequel. Some of the footage shot by Donner that was not in the final cut of the film had been added for network television showings and reconstructed in bootlegs available online. But not all of the original Donner work was available. Due to a court case between Marlon Brando and the Salkinds an original opening sequence shot by Donner for the sequel had been locked away in a London vault. Rumors had persisted for years that a cut by Donner had existed with over 70 percent of the unused scenes. And now Warner Brothers has announced that it will be available towards the end of the year as part of the new Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition on DVD. In a press release issued by Warner Brothers it claims that Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is the "first time" a director has been allowed to go back and reconstruct his work on a film he was fired off of. Although when Donner was asked recently about the project he replied..."They're doing it. I'm not doing it. They're doing it. Michael Thau, who used to be my assistant and is a good little editor - [said that] there were so many requests to Warner Brothers to see my cut that he went to them and they authorized it. He's been working for about four or five months now getting all the negatives and cuts out of England. A lot of it's been destroyed, a lot of it wasn't kept. But everything that he was able to [get], he said it will probably be about 70 percent my footage." So for those of us fans or fanatics who have been hoping for this for over a quarter of a century, mark your calanders for a November 28 release date. Also a four-disc Superman: The Movie will include two versions of the film: The 1978 theatrical original and the 2001 director's cut.

Richard Donner Movies