Rumor - Superman II: Donner director's cut in 2006?

[Woochifer]

Apparently, in anticipation of Superman Returns Warner is preparing new special edition DVDs for Superman II, III, and IV. The hottest rumor is that this could include a new Richard Donner Director's Cut of Superman II, which would be great news on many fronts. The story here is that original Superman director Richard Donner shot enough footage for nearly two full movies, and before he could finish both of them, he had to rush the first movie into theaters. So, he finished the first movie, but before he could resume with Superman II, the producers fired him. Enter a new director, Richard Lester, who supposedly tossed out more than half of the footage already shot for Superman II and reshot much of the movie.

Even though at the time it came out, Superman II fared pretty well with critics and audiences, in subsequent years, it has not aged nearly as well as the first Superman has. With this backdrop, there's been a pretty steady clamoring on fan sites over the last few years for someone at Warner to put together a cut of Superman II with the Richard Donner-directed scenes restored. If the rumors are true, this would be great news for those of us who've wondered how Superman II would have turned out if Donner had finished the movie himself.

The special edition DVDs would also come with new 5.1 soundtracks and bonus discs, which would finally remedy the abysmal DVD treatment that II, III, and IV got with their original movie-only 2.0 DD releases. I never bought those DVDs because I saw both Superman II and Superman III in theaters with 70mm six-track prints. For those titles to subsequently come out on DVD with 2.0 soundtracks, when they got six-track theatrical releases, was inexcusable.

On paper, it seems that Warner has got a killer set of DVDs coming out for the Batman movies (two-disc special editions with new DTS soundtracks). A similarly stellar treatment for the Superman movies would be welcome news.

http://www.supermancinema.co.uk/

[kexodusc]

I'm all in favor of seeing some great Superman DVD's, but do we really need another version of "Batman and Robin" or "Batman Forever"? Haven't we really said all that needs to be said with the original DVD. Unless one of the special bonus features is the real film and this has all just been the most elaborate Hollywood prank ever, I think I'll have to pass on the Batman DVD's. Knowing my luck though, it'll be a box set, in order to get the good one you'll have to adopt the others.

It's a shame the Superman movies haven't held up against time a bit better. I was a huge fan of those as a kid in the 80's. C'mon, name one other hero who can counter Earth's rotation and reverse time!!!

[Lexmark3200]

Wow, I have been hearing COUNTLESS RUMORS about a director's cut of Donner's SUPERMAN II -- which was the best in the series, no doubt -- but never any concrete word about it; that would be GREAT if they did indeed make Superman II into some kind of Special Edition, as that would be the only one I would buy -- I have held off on buying the SUPERMAN COLLECTION box set as Im not really a fan, but part II with General Zod, Non, and the others who escape from the phantom zone was just an awesome comic hero film. I have heard that the transfers on the current Superman box collection arent that great, and so Im holding out for just part II in a Special Edition/Director's Cut, which I would definitely purchase.

As for the BATMAN films, I WILL be buying that BATMAN MOVIE FRANCHISE set when it arrives this Fall with the remastered double disc versions of these titles because the current transfers are, in my opinion, horrendous. Each film is gonna get DTS audio, to boot!

I know BATMAN AND ROBIN was one of the worst turds to ever hit celluloid, and its true, it really did suck and Clooney was just horrible --- but Im gonna buy the set to be a completist.....I just dont feel the same about Superman.....

[Defshep]

Wow, has Warners finally decided to produce some quality sets? No snap cases, please! And DTS! WB has only produced a handful of dvds with a DTS track.
Superman 2 hasn't held up as well as 1. While I liked the story and characters, the editing eas shoddy, and in my opinion, some of the cheapie looking visuals just didn't age well. I'd love to see it as Donner intended.

[Defshep]

Also, 1 and 2 are the only installments (so far) I choose to recognize.

[Lexmark3200]

Yes, Def, apparently Warner Brothers is beginning to see the light a little bit by making many of their titles available without those horrible cheap snapper cases and actually getting more involved with Digital Theater Systems; here's a link to what the Batman box set is gonna look like; Im psyched:



http://www.dvdanswers.com/index.php?...%3D11%26y%3D12

Also, I TOTALLY agree about Superman.....III and IV were complete wastes of time and celluloid materials....what the HELL were they thinking with that franchise? That was WORSE than the Batman sequels after "Batman Returns"......Jesus.......

[Woochifer]

I'm all in favor of seeing some great Superman DVD's, but do we really need another version of "Batman and Robin" or "Batman Forever"? Haven't we really said all that needs to be said with the original DVD. Unless one of the special bonus features is the real film and this has all just been the most elaborate Hollywood prank ever, I think I'll have to pass on the Batman DVD's. Knowing my luck though, it'll be a box set, in order to get the good one you'll have to adopt the others.

It's a shame the Superman movies haven't held up against time a bit better. I was a huge fan of those as a kid in the 80's. C'mon, name one other hero who can counter Earth's rotation and reverse time!!!

The Batman franchise set will be available as a boxed set, but each title will be sold individually as well. (Although the list price on the box set is lower than buying three DVDs by themselves) Even though I like the first two Batman movies and found the third one sort of amusing, I've held off from buying any of the Batman titles because they are all movie-only DVDs with reduced bitrate 384k DD soundtracks. With this new releases, my patience is finally being rewarded with all four Batman movies coming out as two-disc sets complete with DTS soundtracks.

I think the first Superman has gained in stature in the ensuing years. It suffers from having to spend half the movie on the back story, but it has a timeless almost mythical quality to it that has held up very well, along with a lot of memorable and evocative scenes that aren't all about action (i.e. the scene with young Clark leaving Smallville, and the interview/flight with Lois).

The second movie is a better straight up adventure film that I thought was better than the first one when I first saw it. But, it's got a lot of holes and cut corners that seem more and more glaring with repeated viewing, and I now view the first movie as a far superior movie overall. Whether restoring the scenes that Richard Donner originally filmed would make for a better and more definitive version of Superman II, I would definitely like to see (supposedly he had completed 80-90% of the film, but when Richard Lester replaced Donner, only about 30% of the Donner footage was actually used).

The first movie also features arguably John Williams' best score and uses a full orchestra, while the sequel cheaped out by recycling Williams' themes and going with a smaller studio orchestra.

The series really took a nosedive with the third installment (this ought to give you an idea of how much Richard Donner's vision of the Superman series differed from Richard Lester's) and bottomed out with low budget Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Rumor also has it that Superman IV got released with over 30 minutes chopped out because Cannon Films (the low budget studio that released that movie) wanted to get the film length down to around 90 minutes (which would allow theaters to squeeze an extra showing). It would be interesting to see whether Superman IV would fare any better restored to its original running length, although that movie had multiple problems that additional footage probably won't do much to solve.

Thus far, I've only purchased the first Superman on DVD because it's only one with a 5.1 soundtrack (and a 5.0 DD isolated track of Williams' amazing score) and a good set of supplemental features. If these special editions come out, I would probably pick up Superman II because at a minimum it will now have a 5.1 soundtrack and some new supplementals. But, if the Donner director's cut (or even the rough cut scenes) is included, it's a definite must-buy.