Superman The Movie director, Richard Donner, had already completed 75% of Superman II when he was unceremoniously dismissed from the project by producers, the Salkind brothers. He was replaced by UK director, Richard Lester, who was at the time better known for his involvement in a slew of embarrassingly cheesy 'comedies' and his collaboration with The Beatles.
To Superman fans he is the anti-christ; the clueless usurper who transformed their beloved Man of Steel into a camp caricature. For Lester to be credited with the director title it was stipulated that he would have to be responsible for at least 51% of the Superman II footage. To meet this demand he set about re-shooting Donner's scenes, laying waste to decades of the hero's esteemed heritage. Lester's vision incorporated a number of excruciating, slapstick, pantomime routines, some unfathomable dialogue and at least one major plot hole.
Ever since its release, Superman purists have been petitioning Warner Brothers to allow Donner to restore his far superior cut of Superman II. Only recently did they concede to these pleas for sanity to prevail - it is due for release on 28th November this year!
While searching for a definite d-day on the IMDB message boards I stumbled across some insightful posts by, none other than, erm... Non, aka Jack O'Halloran.
Jack kindly gave up some of his time to answer a mixed bag of fan questions. A few tidbits I managed to glean from his replies include...
~ The actor has spoken to Bryan Singer about the possibility of himself, General Zod and Ursa appearing in the sequel to Superman Returns.
~ How the caped crusader regained his super powers after relinquishing them so he could become a mere mortal and be with the love of his life, Lois Lane, will be revealed in Donner's cut.
~ In response to suggestions that Donner was fired due to creative differences or an inability to work within the film's budget, Jack insists that neither statement is true, but doesn't offer any other explanations even when pressed.
~ Lester is an ice cream cone, Donner is a banana split.
Seeing Jack spring from nowhere to mingle with the proletariat got me wondering how many more celebs may have graced us with their presence on the IMDB forums. I decided I'd trawl the net looking for clues, construct a staggeringly protracted list of them and post it to my blog. People would travel from far and wide to witness the spectacle and I'd be awarded a Nobel prize for writing the most cunning blog entry of the 28 known universes. Then I thought, "sod it! - it would take forever and life's too short".
For more details of Donner's cut of Superman II refer to this Wikipedia article.
1 comments:
Who cares? The first four Superman movies were crap. The only good one is Superman Returns. Superman II should be left alone where it belongs - the bargain bin of the dollar stores.
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