Superman II: Donner Cut + Boxed Set Announced

[Woochifer]

After months, if not years, of speculation and rumors, the Richard Donner cut of Superman II was officially announced at Comic-Con, as reported by The Digital Bits. The DVD is due out on November 28 and will include a newly edited cut of Superman II that incorporates Richard Donner's previously discarded footage and newly done effect scenes; as well as a 5.1 soundtrack, a new commentary track, along with the remaining scenes that did not make it into new cut.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

In addition to the Donner edition announcement, the eight-disc Christopher Reeve Superman Collection was also announced. Contrary to previous rumors, the Donner cut will only be available as a standalone DVD, and won't be part of the boxed set or the Superman II special edition DVD set.

As far as the boxed set goes, Superman: The Movie will expand into a four-disc DVD edition that includes both the original 1978 cut and the extended cut from the 2001 DVD release. The extras and documentaries that were announced seem like the same ones that the original DVD release included. The DVD will also include the 1951 George Reeves movie Superman and the Mole-Men, and 9 of the classic Max Fleischer cartoons.

So, it seems that the new edition will carry over the 2001 DVD content, and add the 1978 theatrical cut (along with a new commentary), the George Reeves movie, and the 9 Max Fleischer cartoons. IMO, this makes it a borderline double-dip, unless the new edition also does some clean up on the video and bumps up the audio bitrates from the 384k resolution Dolby Digital soundtracks that were included in the 2001 DVD edition.

The two-disc Superman II DVD set will FINALLY get a 5.1 soundtrack, along with a documentary, commentary track, and deleted scenes. It will also include the 8 other Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. As mentioned, all of the Richard Donner footage will only be included with the other standalone DVD.

III and IV will each be single-disc editions with new 5.1 soundtracks, commentary tracks, and making-of documentaries.

All in all, a mixed bag from Warner, with notable improvements to II, III, and IV in particular that correct shortcomings with the original releases that should never have been in place to begin with. I did not read anything about DTS tracks, nor does it look like Warner did anything special like the Shadow of the Bat documentary that they spanned across all four of the Batman movies in last year's boxed set.

The list price on the boxed set is $80, which is the same as the Batman set that I purchased last year for $45 on the day of release. The Donner edition DVD will list for $25, which indicates a likely street price of $15.