It’s hard to believe that it has been sixteen years since the release of the Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD set, and yet it marked one of the most substantial home video releases from Warner Home Video at that time. To this day it is highly regarded by both Superman fans and home video collectors as one of the most comprehensive sets ever.

After the release of the Superman special edition DVD release in 2001, fans began to ask if there was more to the films. And the answer was an overwhelming yes. There were more scenes, more stories, more behind the scenes footage, than had been previously seen or even believed.

It would be another five and a half years before fans got the answers to the questions they had been asking… in the form of several all new Superman special edition DVD releases, all of which were released on November 28, 2006.

The original Superman was expanded to a generous four-disc set that included the 2001 special edition, the original 1978 theatrical release with two different sound mixes, an all new audio commentary with executive producer Ilya Salkind and producer Pierre Spengler, the original Making of Superman: The Movie documentary from 1980, the 1951 feature film Superman and the Mole Men, and nine of the Fleischer Studios’ animated Superman short films from 1941-42, in addition to nearly all of the legacy features from the 2001 DVD release. This allowed the film to breathe and be fully enjoyed across the DVD format.

This would be joined by a new two-disc special edition of Superman II. That release featured a new audio commentary with Salkind and Spengler, the TV special The Making of Superman II from 1983, the Superman 50th Anniversary special from 1988, the remaining eight Superman animated shorts from Famous Studious from 1942-43, the original feature First Flight: The Fleischer Superman Series, and the deleted scene of Superman’s soufflé that was first seen in the extended TV cut from 1984.

There would also be a new deluxe edition of Superman III that was released. This would include a new audio commentary with Salkind and Spengler, the TV documentary The Making of Superman III, and a collection of scenes taken from the 1986 extended version. This would be joined by a new deluxe edition of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. On that disc was included an audio commentary from screenwriter Mark Rosenthal and, more importantly, nearly thirty minutes of footage from the original 134-minute cut of the film, presented in a workprint format. While the footage wasn’t in the best quality, it was better than nothing, though some scenes such as the complete Metro Club sequence were not included.

All four of these releases were issued both separately and in an eight-disc box set called the Christopher Reeve Superman Collection. But this was just the beginning.

Making its world premiere was Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut on DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray. This brand new release showcased the original intentions that Donner and Tom Mankiewicz had for the film, and restoration producer Michael Thau had done the impossible task of putting Donner’s film back together again from nearly all of the footage that had been shot in 1977. This included the original opening of Lois Lane jumping out of the Daily Planet to trick Clark into turning into Superman; all of Marlon Brando’s footage that was shot in March and April 1977; and the film’s original ending, of Superman reversing all of the damage to the world, among others. Thau also utilized the screen tests for Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder for another crucial scene in the film, and in some places he used what Richard Lester footage was necessary to tell a coherent story. The final product was met with mixed reviews that still continue to this day.

The disc would also include a new introduction to the film by Richard Donner; a new audio commentary by Donner and Mankiewicz; the feature Superman II: Restoring the Vision, about the process of bringing the film to completion; and six deleted scenes, most of which were included in the 1984 extended TV cut.

All of these discs would be included in what is still considered one of the most spectacular DVD sets ever compiled: the Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition. This massive 14-disc set brought together all of the previously mentioned discs along with the 2006 DVD documentary Look! Up in the Sky – The Amazing Story of Superman, a new two-hour look at eight decades of Superman’s history from comics to animation, movie serials to television, and, of course, the feature films. Narrated by Kevin Spacey, it served as a precursor to the then-upcoming theatrical release Superman Returns.

Along with the other discs, the 14-disc set included the 2-disc release of Superman Returns, which featured a number of deleted scenes from the film; two theatrical trailers; the three-hour documentary Requiem for Krypton: Making Superman Returns; and a brief feature called “Resurrecting Jor-El”, which looked at how CGI played a factor in adapting Marlon Brando’s footage from 1977 for the film. (The Circuit City release would include a bonus disc, “The Science of Superman”, which was not included on the 14-disc set but would be included in the 2011 Blu-ray anthology.)

One of the highlights of the 14-disc set was the brand new documentary You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman, a 90-minute look at the making of Christopher Reeve films that focused primarily on the first film while touching upon the sequels to lesser detail. But what makes this documentary great is the inclusion of rare outtakes and behind the scenes clips from the making of the first two films. And this is only a fraction of what is in the Warner Bros. vaults.

But that’s not all. There is “The Mythology of Superman”, which traces the history of Biblical, Greek, and Roman culture, along with the pulp novels and stories of the 1920s and 1930s, that influenced Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to create what would become the first and most iconic superhero. Then there is the touching video “The Heart of a Hero: A Tribute to Christopher Reeve”, in which family and friends pay tribute to the iconic actor who became an even more inspirational leader through his tireless efforts in raising funds and awareness for spinal cord paralysis which continues to this day long after his passing. There’s also a rare color print of The Adventures of Superpup, the 1958 pilot that was filmed on the Adventures of Superman sets with an all-dog cast. And there’s three vintage Superman-inspired cartoons from the Warner Bros. vaults: “Super-Rabbit” with Bugs Bunny; “Snafuperman”, part of the 1940’s “Private Snafu” series; and “Stupor-Duck” with Daffy Duck.

The final disc is a collection of Bryan Singer’s video journals that chronicle his work on Superman Returns. About half of them were included as a bonus disc in some releases of the Look! Up In the Sky documentary, but here we have all 29 of them. This should have been the third disc of the Superman Returns release, so it’s nice to see them included in this set in their entirety.

The Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition still stands to this day as one of Warner Home Video’s top legacy titles, and, as compilations grow and the home viewing medium continues to advance forward, it will be sought after by both Superman and film fans alike.

(Some of the images presented in this blog are courtesy of CapedWonder.com.)

Have you ever put together a jigsaw puzzle and noticed a couple of pieces missing? That’s always a problem. Now imagine your jigsaw puzzle missing a third of the pieces. Now that’s a significant problem. And yet that’s what happened with the theatrical release of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace in July 1987. Like many fans, I was determined to find out what happened and why major parts of the film were cut out at the last minute.

Part of the answer came in April 1990, when an extended version of the film premiered on TV. Unlike the Salkind international versions of the first three films, which had aired on ABC and numerous foreign markets during the 1980s, this new extended version of Superman IV ran in syndication on the local Fox station, WDBD Channel 40 in Jackson, Mississippi, and on nationally known stations such as WGN in Chicago and Superstation TBS in Atlanta. Like its theatrical counterpart, the film ran in a two-hour time slot, with a TV Net trailer prepared. Lo and behold, there was footage of Clark and Lacy kissing in the back seat of a car! Where did that scene come from? And there were two new scenes as well, one of Superman saving a little girl (his daughter Alexandra) and her family from a tornado, and one of Superman preventing a nuclear missile going off in the heart of Red Square in Russia. And there were scores of photographs in the film’s novelization, poster magazine, and print interviews. But it didn’t lead me to any answers.

With the explosion of the Internet in the 1990’s, people could now publicly share information with one another on any possible topic. One of the first searches I did was for any information about the Superman film series. This led me to a Geocities web page managed by Gregory Oshel about the films. It was here that I first learned about a version of Superman IV that ran 134 minutes in length. According to Oshel, the running time was based on a statement made by Harrison Ellenshaw based on a sneak preview of the film shown in Orange County, California, in the latter half of June 1987, approximately one month before the film’s release. Apparently something had happened.

This eventually led me to the Superman Cinema website and message board, hosted by Dharmesh Chauhan, and it was here that more information was shared. Reportedly, people who attended the sneak preview were less than impressed with the film, with some people leaving during the screening, which led to executives from Warner Bros. demanding that the film be edited to meet its release date. As a rest, the release date was pushed back a week from its original release date of July 17, 1987, to July 24, 1987, to allow for the editing, the assembly of the remaining footage, and its final distribution. The final film would run 89 minutes in the United States, while it would run 92 minutes in all of Cannon’s overseas markets. According to one report, Harrison Ellenshaw had requested that the tornado and Russia scenes be reinstated to the international release, and a final film continuity report confirmed a 92-minute running time for the film overseas. But the whereabouts of that footage remained unknown at that time.

Around then a number of reports also surfaced on the message boards. Reportedly, a number of people had posted that they recalled seeing the 134-minute version of Superman IV on the SFM Holiday Network, which was defunct by that time. Numerous versions of the same statement popped up on occasion: either the poster or a friend or family member had recorded the film during its lone broadcast, but something happened to the tape – it got recorded over, it got misplaced, they couldn’t find it – and they couldn’t supply the proof. The stories kept leading nowhere, and the SFM rumor was ultimately debunked as false. Serious Superman fans began pursuing every possible lead, and I myself debunked a few leads, including one that supposedly led me to a video store in the Netherlands that claimed to have a 120-minute version of the film. It turned out to be 88 minutes in length. By the early 2000’s, I tracked another lead to a seller on eBay who reportedly had a copy of this 134-minute print on tape. All he had to show for it in his posting were two photos both in poor shape. I was hesitant about chasing this lead down the rabbit hole. Good thing I didn’t – or I would have lost my money in the process.

But not only did Dharmesh Chauhan post photos of some of these lost scenes from the missing footage, so did Jim Bowers on his then-newly launched website CapedWonder.com. From here other websites, including Steve Younis’ Superman Homepage, the unofficial Christopher Reeve page, and numerous others began to share more information on these missing scenes and the film’s production.

With the advent of the DVD format in 1997, it was only a matter of time before the Superman films appeared on the new format. Previously, the only versions of the film on home video were the original full screen version on VHS and laserdisc, and an interesting widescreen version of the film on a Japanese laserdisc from Tohokushinsha Video and King Video. This version ran 93 minutes long and contained the additional footage that was shown in the 1990 syndicated broadcasts. It’s here that we learned that this was in fact the Cannon Films international version of the film. To this date it remains the only source of the longest known cut of the film. I remember finding it on eBay when I lived in Mississippi, but when I moved to Alabama in 2005, the laserdisc did not survive the move. It had broken in half.

Things began to heat up in November 2006 when Warner Home Video released a massive 14-disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD set of all of the Superman films (including both cuts of Superman: The Movie, two versions of Superman II, and the theatrical releases of Superman III, Superman IV, and Superman Returns), complete with audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and documentaries. Included in the release were 30 minutes of deleted scenes from Superman IV and an audio commentary by Mark Rosenthal, who confirmed that the original version of the film was indeed 134 minutes long. Granted, the deleted scenes were taken from a workprint version of the film, but much of what was lost was now available for everyone to view and consider. The original heart of the film, of Superman’s hope for the world as seen through the eyes of a child, is clearly present in the film’s original and more optimistic ending. The majority of the film’s lost subplot involving Lex Luthor’s creation of a flawed prototype Nuclear Man (played by Clive Mantle) is present. Portions of a seriocomic fight between Superman and the prototype Nuclear Man, which was budgeted at approximately $6 million (a good third of the film’s overall budget), are present. Much of Luthor’s motivation towards manipulating the sales of nuclear arms to the U.S. and Soviet military forces is present. An exciting confrontation between Superman and the second Nuclear Man, which nearly brings the U.S. and Soviet forces to their knees, was included. And we have more footage of Christopher Reeve in action as Superman, which is always a pleasure.

In 2007 I took it upon myself to assemble a reconstruction of all of the footage from Superman IV, using the U.S. theatrical release, a copy of the Cannon international version, and the deleted scenes from the DVD, for the project. It wasn’t the best, I admit, but it was all that I had to work with, which sufficed. Once I was finished, I began to see the original intentions that Sidney Furie and Christopher Reeve had in mind. My reconstruction of the film, with all the footage in place, ran 116 minutes in length. That meant that some 18 minutes of footage remained unreleased. The film still had a cheap quality to it in places, and the visual effects still did not hold up to par with the previous films, but there was something there now. The film began to make sense. It remains one of the few bright spots of my life from that otherwise painful and difficult year.

In February 2008 we were treated to another major find, with the release of “Superman: The Music – 1978-1988”, a generous eight-disc CD box set containing the complete soundtracks to all four theatrical films and the Ruby-Spears animated series. For the first time we had the complete score to Superman IV as conducted by Alexander Courage in May and early June 1987 in Germany and England, respectively, and we further saw into the original intentions of the film. While the reduced budget affected the scoring process, the final score reveals an even larger canvas and emotional excitement than was seen and heard in the final film. I remember attending an online chat session on Talk City around 1999 or 2000 with Alexander Courage, Dennis McCarthy, and Don Davis, and questions about the score to Superman IV were posed to Courage. At that time, he stated that he did not see the need for a soundtrack release to the film, feeling that the music sounded repetitive. While the score does at times hit the same beats, it has a freshness that sounds less like the original John Williams compositions and yet more of how he would have further expanded the musical canvas with the new themes and action music. To this day it remains a highlight of the box set. The score would later be re-released in a separate CD set by LaLaLand Records in 2018 to mark the 80th anniversary of the launch of the Superman character.

With all of this information in mind, I reached the conclusion that, after scoring ended on the film, the complete 134-minute version of Superman IV was shown in its finished form to the sneak preview audience in California in the latter half of June 1987, with all of the footage, music, and visual effects completed and in place. I must stress the word all here. One only needs to hear the music in two key deleted scenes and consider the finished quality of many of the visual effects in the workprint footage. And we must also consider the theatrical trailers and TV spots for the film, which contained even more finished footage from the film. All of these pieces are crucial to understanding the overall picture. It is still baffling that a major studio would order severe cuts to a film, resulting in a loss of 42-45 minutes of footage only a month before its release. Perhaps their fears about the poor quality of the film were on the money more than they realized. I remember reading one interview with Menahem Golan in which he believed that editing the film down to 89-92 minutes would guarantee more showings at the box office and more money in return. Not necessarily so.

Thirty-five years have passed, and we still do not know all of the answers to all of our questions related to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, Sam Wanamaker, Menahem Golan, and Alexander Courage are long since gone. All we have left are their thoughts on the film to consider. In recent years, however, Sidney J. Furie has opened up a bit more about the film. In the 2015 book Sidney J. Furie: Life and Films, biographer Daniel Kremer has given us the first complete biography of Furie, which includes his thoughts on Superman IV. A 2017 interview with Paul Rowlands for the website Money Into Light sheds further insight about Furie and the film:

“Sidney doesn’t like to talk about the film. He gave me an early warning when we started the book. We discussed each of his films in chronological order. We would get to a particular film and then he would then go off on free association. But when we got to Superman IV, he said, ‘OK, you got 5 minutes. Go.’ He has never actually seen the final cut that wound up releasing, and has no interest in doing so. When I told him about the mountain of criticisms regarding the special effects, he had no idea because he had left once Cannon cut the film down. At that point, the effects were unfinished. In fact, by the look of things, they were permanently left unfinished. Sidney shares the least blame on that production, but people like to pile the blame on him.

“There really was an attempt to harken back to the original Donner film. There are very well meaning aspects to that film that are quite endearing, and there are a number of scenes that are affecting in some ways. Unfortunately, in the final edit, of which he had no part of, the movie doesn’t really coalesce and falls apart, and the special effects do deserve the ignominious reputation they have gotten over the years. People ask why Furie even agreed to make the film, but Richard Lester made Superman III (1983), and that didn’t hurt his status as an auteur, which doesn’t seem fair. Why does Lester get a pass and Furie get the shaft? Both have made masterpieces and both have made flops, and both have recognisable styles.”

Most importantly, the master footage from that lone sneak preview remains unseen, including some 18 minutes that, with the exception of still photographs, the various drafts of the shooting script production logs, and studio memos, we know very little about. It’s a jigsaw puzzle with quite a number of pieces gone. And yet a small niche of fans remains hopeful that Warner Home Video will one day release the complete, original version of the film on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive in the same way that the extended TV cut of Superman: The Movie and the international version of Supergirl were released. In recent years Warner Bros. has stated that the complete 134-minute print of the film exists in their vaults. In what condition, however, nobody knows. And with the forthcoming 4K releases of the Superman films in 2023, perhaps with enough effort, we may finally have the answers we are looking for.

But beyond that, it still has a heart and an intention to it that Christopher Reeve and the cast and crew attempted to recapture. It’s a guilty pleasure, I must admit, one that takes me back to the days when I was on the cusp of adulthood, yet still with the heart and wonder of a child. I still dream to this day, as I am well in the second half of my life now, though my innocence and home, like Clark Kent faces in the film, are now forever gone. But it’s all part of a bigger adventure, one that, like Superman, we all face.

(Some screenshots and photographs in this blog are used courtesy of CapedWonder.com.)

So I’m in the middle of my look back at everything that went wrong with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, when I received this in the mail a little while ago…

This came as a result of the Official Pix autograph session with the legendary Gene Hackman, best known for his many films including The French Connection, Young Frankenstein, Hoosiers, Crimson Tide, and, of course, his portrayal of Lex Luthor in the Superman films alongside Christopher Reeve. Even though he retired from acting nearly twenty years ago, he has moved into a solid writing career and simply enjoying life.

I’ve been collecting Superman cast autographs for over a year now, so when this opportunity came up, I went for it. I could have selected any photograph from their selection, or I could have sent in a magazine or a DVD cover, but this particular piece from my collection just leapt out at me. And that it’s a reproduction of the newspaper headline that appeared at the start of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut didn’t matter to me. What mattered is that it’s a Lex Luthor piece with Mr. Hackman prominently featured on the front page. How could anyone not miss such an opportunity?

And I must give thanks to Chris Wyman at Official Pix for making this event happen. Chris is a wonderful person to work with. He answered all of my questions very promptly and efficiently, and he went the extra mile to mail the autographed print back with very protective packaging and the Official Pix holographic seal of approval. So there is no doubt about it that this is a genuine Gene Hackman autograph, a centerpiece for any Superman collection!

Many thanks to Chris Wyman and Official Pix, and many special thanks to the one and only Gene Hackman for creating so many wonderful memories for everyone!

According to a familiar saying, before you construct a building, be sure to count the cost.

All of the elements that came together to make Superman IV seemed right. Christopher Reeve was back, the cast was in place, a solid story was in development, and for the first time things looked bright. So what happened next, and where did everything go wrong?

Because of numerous financial missteps, including several of Cannon Films’ releases failing both critically and commercially at the box office, and having too many irons in the proverbial fire at the same time, producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were left with no choice but to cut the original $40 million budget assigned to Superman IV down to just $17 million. Many key areas of production, including the all-important visual effects, were hit by the reduced budget. It didn’t help matters that Cannon threw much of the budget for IV toward what they felt would be the bigger blockbuster, their film version of Masters of the Universe. Golan would later state that he would rather make twenty or thirty movies for a million dollars apiece than one movie for $20-30 million. Toward the end of 1986, Warner Bros. came in to alleviate some of the financial burdens carried by Cannon Films, but even that could not help the film. And Christopher Reeve was facing personal issues on the home front, which also affected his work on the film. Nonetheless, he remained committed to the film from start to finish. At one point it had been suggested during production that Reeve might portray the film’s secondary antagonist, the Nuclear Man, but that part went to novice actor Mark Pillow instead (with the character’s voice dubbed by Gene Hackman).

With the reduced budget, cast and crew shot the film in numerous locations in England, among them Milton Keynes (which doubled as Metropolis and the United Nations), Hertfordshire (which did a great job recreating the Kent farm and the Smallville cemetery), and at Elstree Studios throughout the fall and winter of 1986 and into January 1987. They could not afford to go on location for some key scenes in New York City, even though several spectacular shots of the city are featured throughout. Reeve would later state in his 1998 autobiography Still Me, “We were…hampered by budget constraints and cutbacks in all departments. Cannon Films had nearly thirty projects in the works at the time, and Superman IV received no special consideration. For example, (Lawrence) Konner and (Mark) Rosenthal wrote a scene in which Superman lands on 42nd Street and walks down the double yellow lines to the United Nations, where he gives a speech. If that had been a scene in Superman I, we would have actually shot it on 42nd Street. Dick Donner would have choreographed hundreds of pedestrians and vehicles and cut to people gawking out of office windows at the sight of Superman walking down the street like the Pied Piper. Instead we had to shoot at an industrial park in England in the rain with about a hundred extras, not a car in sight, and a dozen pigeons thrown in for atmosphere. Even if the story had been brilliant, I don’t think that we could ever have lived up to the audience’s expectations with this approach.”

It was around December 1986 that Christopher Reeve made his directorial debut, shooting the second-unit fight scenes between Superman and the second Nuclear Man on the moon. In a 2021 interview for the CapedWonder Superman Podcast, Mark Pillow recalled how Reeve took charge of the moon sequences. “He actually, as far as I can remember, he basically shot all of the moon sequences, so he covered everything. So he was very thorough, so we would shoot it multiple times, we’d change angles,…he was very much in charge. I think he felt pretty comfortable in that position. I can certainly have seen him, bless his heart, doing more directing later on. But yes, the moon sequence was, I believe, all him.”

Pillow also recalled the problems that occurred during filming, which included working on a lower budget, and the differences Reeve and Furie experienced. “They pretty much kept it to themselves. When I came to work, it was just to do the very best that I could that day, and I didn’t sense from Chris that I’m sure he was very upset and disappointed, I think. But it seems like I saw less of Sidney at a certain point, and it’s only putting two and two together later on thinking that possibly he was disappointed by the way things were going, but I didn’t have any sense of it myself while I was there.”

Once the film wrapped principal photography, the race was on to complete the film’s crucial special effects and flying sequences. According to Mark Rosenthal, much of the original special effects team that had been hired for the film was let go once the budget was cut. Instead of six months, Harrison Ellenshaw and his team had a mere thirty days to get it done. This explains why certain flying shots were repeated multiple times in the final film and its respective cut scenes.

Golan and Globus had also intended to bring back yet another key member of the original team: John Williams. While his schedule in composing the score to The Witches of Eastwick and conducting the Boston Pops proved to be a conflict with the film, he agreed to write three new themes for the supporting characters of Lacy Warfield, the Nuclear Man, and Jeremy, and turned to long time collaborator Alexander Courage of Star Trek fame to handle the final scoring duties. Even then the reduced budget affected the scoring process, with some cues very rarely getting a second take. Paul Fishman, son of Cannon music producer Jack Fishman, recorded several pieces of source music for the film, and Warner Bros. Records made plans for a soundtrack album similar to the Superman III LP a few years earlier, with the A side of the album comprised of cues from the orchestral score and the B side comprised of Paul Fishman’s source music and the Jerry Lee Lewis hit “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” to underscore Lenny Luthor’s first appearance in the film.

In the spring of 1987, Cannon Films released the first teaser trailer for Superman IV, and for all intents and purposes it felt like a big film indeed. They had crafted their trailer to echo the first teaser trailer from the first film, with sweeping cast credits and the original recording of John Williams’ main title theme to announce the film’s release that summer. Only one piece of footage was used in the spoiler-free trailer, of Superman flying in space from the climax of the film. Based on the teaser trailer alone, the film seemed to hold promise.

As late as the middle of May 1987, the film was still referred to simply as Superman IV, and it was set for release on July 17th that year in the United States and Canada through Warner Bros. and through the rest of the world from Cannon. It would be just a short time before the film’s release, possibly late May or early June, that the subtitle The Quest for Peace was added at Christopher Reeve’s request. Shortly afterwards, trailers and TV spots were prepared for domestic and international screenings, each one addressing key points of the film’s story. By that time the film’s release date was pushed back a week and rescheduled for July 24th.

Then, without the majority of us knowing, everything about the film fell apart, and what started out as Superman IV and what ended up as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace are two totally different things.

I went to the Metrocenter Cinema 4, where all of the previous Superman films had premiered, to see the new film on opening day, and I had my expectations about the film. I was all of twenty years old, two months out from my twenty-first birthday, and looking forward to my fourth year at Mississippi College. As opposed to having my parents with me, who went with me to see the first three films, I went by myself. Looking back, I should have realized that something was wrong.

The local newspaper advertised five screenings for the film, as opposed to the usual four. That meant that the film would run somewhere around 90 to 97 minutes. It was actually shorter than that, a mere 89 minutes in length. At the end of the film, I found myself thinking, “That’s it?” There had to have been more than this. After all, the interviews with Christopher Reeve on television and in the Starlog and Comics Scene magazines promised something special. But what struck me odd was that a group of boys, who had to have been no more than six or seven years old each, were more excited about the forthcoming release of Robocop, a film that had been toned down from its original X rating to an R because of the excessive violence. What had happened in the nine years since the release of the original Superman to jade young people’s perception of good and bad, right and wrong? Those thoughts stayed with me into the early 1990’s, as I pursued my master’s degree in English education.

And yet the clues were there. Scores of prominent visual effects​ were used multiple times throughout the film. Editing and pacing seemed choppy. The once convincing visual effects, which had earned the first film an Academy Award, looked second-rate at best. Nothing seemed to make sense. Logic seemed to be thrown out the window at times. The final film had all of the quality of a TV movie of the week.

At the time of the film’s release, Starlog ran a news blurb in one of its issues stating that 30 minutes of footage had been cut from Superman IV before its release. That meant that the film had to have been at least two hours long. But it was the critical interview with Sidney J. Furie that seemed to bury the film. Along with numerous photos of scenes that were not in the final film, Furie blatantly stated in no uncertain terms that he didn’t care whether or not the film succeeded or failed. In his interview for Starlog just before the film’s release, Furie stated, “What will it do for me? It won’t do s—-. If Superman IV is a hit, it won’t do s—-, and if it’s a failure, it couldn’t matter less to me because the people who know me, know me.”

In looking back on the film in 2006, Margot Kidder said, “You can’t make a good movie out of a bad script, and it simply didn’t work and fell flat on its face, but I thought its ambitions were good.” Kidder also commented in another interview that Reeve and Furie had different approaches to the film and frequently clashed.

Superman IV earned a mere $15.5 million in its U.S. release and another $21 million in its overseas releases, for an overall total of over $36.5 million, which was close to the initial budget for the film before the budget was cut in half, making it the only Superman film to fail at the box office both critically and commercially. In interviews conducted in 2006, Ilya Salkind stated, “I don’t know how to say this but, I mean, there was a Superman IV which did not help the cause of comic book movies…. I would say that if there’s one film that killed Superman at that point, it was Superman IV,” while Annette O’Toole curiously asked, “Was there a Superman IV? I didn’t even see that one.”

Mark Rosenthal also stated, “Cannon, at that time, had come out of this real, in the old days, the real low-budget movies…. And I think they were trying to buy legitimacy, you know, with this one big paycheck. I do know that cutting the special effects budget and the general budget of the movie, I think, came out of their financial shortcomings.”

Pierre Spengler echoed Rosenthal’s comments as well, adding, “They probably didn’t understand how big special effects films need to be made. When you make a big film like Superman, one of your stars is the special effect. It’s an expensive star. You cannot get away with being cheap on that.”

Rosenthal also discussed the failure of the Nuclear Man to connect with filmgoers. “I also think that the conception of Nuclear Man was also sort of dumbed down. We thought, why not conceive of Nuclear Man, which is cloned from (Superman), as some kind of dark shadow of his own? And we actually talked with Chris about playing both roles. It would have been a lot tougher and certainly more expensive to have Chris play both roles. But that’s what its original conception was.”

A number of the tie-ins were aborted as well. The planned soundtrack album was cancelled. Topps, who had handled the trading cards for the previous films, never released any cards for the new film. Scholastic Books produced three paperback books obviously geared toward juvenile audiences. DC Comics produced an illustrated adaptation that, while it filled in some of the gaps in the story, seemed lackluster and uninspiring. The Starlog Press poster magazine fared no better. In a 1993 interview with Wizard Press for a special publication devoted to Superman, Marc McClure offered his thoughts on the film’s failure. “The ending was moved to the middle, and comprehension was lost by anyone beyond the age of three.”

Despite its failure, that fall Golan and Globus announced that pre-production had begun on Superman V, which was scheduled for release in the summer of 1989. I remember reading that they were considering using a portion of the cut footage from IV for the new film, that Albert Pyun had been announced to direct the next installment, and that it was possible that Christopher Reeve might be replaced. Even into the first part of 1988, Cannon was sincere in its intentions about a fifth film, and it was announced at Cannes along with a slate of other projects in order to obtain funding for production. Ultimately, the rights to the Superman franchise returned to the Salkinds, which would, by the fall of 1993, be bought out in turn by Warner Bros. to handle all future film and television productions.

By this time the film’s two major creative forces seemed to distance themselves from the film. Sidney Furie remained indifferent about the film, refusing to discuss it for years afterwards. I had attempted to contact him via his agent in 1998, hoping to learn more about his work on the film. I never heard back from him. “I don’t want this to become an exercise in bashing Sidney Furie,” Mark Rosenthal said in the DVD audio commentary. “He certainly had his hands tied behind his back by the terrible cuts in budget in pre-production.”

Christopher Reeve was sadly affected by the entire project as well. The rushed quality of the film, coupled with his personal problems during filming and a plagiarism lawsuit in the aftermath of its release, all contributed to him closing the door on the project in later years. When he was offered the possibility of returning for a fifth installment in the early 1990’s, he felt that unless the film was a vast improvement upon IV and returned to the quality of what Richard Donner had brought to I and II, he would not consider it. This is why, in his 1998 book Still Me, he makes a statement that is short and to the point: “The less said about Superman IV, the better.” He had borne the brunt of the criticism about the film’s failure, and he had endured a difficult time in his life that he wanted to put behind him.

Rosenthal added in the DVD commentary, “The movie for everyone became an emblem of greed and chaos on the part of people who were in over their heads, an unfortunate and almost unethical betrayal of Chris Reeve, who really single-handedly brought Superman IV together.”

I remember the day after Christopher Reeve passed away in 2004, Jim Bowers and I exchanged our thoughts about Chris. He related to me how he had once offered Chris a copy of the extended version of IV, which Chris politely declined. Even in the later years toward the end of his life, Reeve wanted nothing to do with Superman IV anymore, and we can’t blame him for that.

But even then there lay a mystery, one which I was determined to solve. What happened to the missing footage to Superman IV? Next time I will discuss my attempts to solve the mystery, one which has eluded fans for years.

(Some screenshots and photographs from Superman IV in this blog are courtesy of CapedWonder.com.)

It has been said that the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. The same can be said of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. When the film had been released to theaters on July 24, 1987, the anticipation for the fourth installment had quickly turned sour. Low attendance, coupled with an overall poor critical and commercial response, spelled the end of what had been one of Warner Bros.’ most popular film franchises. And yet its roots were anything but uncertain.

The origins of Superman IV go back to the development of the first two Superman films in 1977 under the supervision of executive producer Ilya Salkind, director Richard Donner, and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz. Upon the casting of Christopher Reeve in the lead role, Salkind said in an interview with David Michael Petrou for his book The Making of Superman: The Movie, “…we had options for seven, possibly ten Superman movies, and a relative newcomer would probably be more believable to audiences and would grow into the part.” Even back then, the thought of a Superman IV seemed possible.

Donner also had similar thoughts about the future of the franchise that Salkind envisioned. In the audio commentary for the 2006 DVD release of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, he echoed the young producer’s sentiments. “If I and II were successful, we had a good film, we saw III and IV right then and there, and we were ready to do it,” he said. “I’d finish II, Tom would probably direct III, maybe I would do IV, it could have been a career. But the career was an exciting one because we had some wonderful stories in our minds. Everything seemed to work, the evolution of the characters was strong. It was a wonderful thing to look forward to. I’m sorry they did not have the sense to go with it…. If I had had the ability, III, IV, V, VI, and VII, but the producers chose to take me off the picture.”

That would not come to pass, however, as Donner was released from completing II in March 1979 and Richard Lester was brought in to restructure the sequel and later go on to direct Superman III. Upon the release of III in June 1983, Variety conducted an interview with Alexander and Ilya Salkind that appeared in print less than a week after the film’s opening, in which they stated that should Superman III earn at least $40 million at the box office, they would look at producing Superman IV. Potentially, they had the opportunity. While the international gross remains unknown, the film would earn over $59.9 million in the United States alone in the summer of 1983, though Ilya Salkind may have verbally cushioned those numbers, saying, “Superman III made $100 million,” in the 2006 documentary Look! Up in the Sky – The Amazing Story of Superman.

In the 2006 documentary You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman, Salkind continued, “I don’t think Cannon would have bought an option from us if (III) was a flop to do a Superman IV.”

Salkind’s longtime friend Pierre Spengler, who produced the first three films and the Supergirl spinoff film, echoed similar thoughts. “Having made Superman III we felt that we didn’t have the energy or the desire to make yet another Superman film. That was really both Ilya’s and my feeling.” Valid concerns indeed.

With the release of Supergirl in 1984, followed by Santa Claus: The Movie in 1985, the Salkinds’ concerns for a Superman IV seemed in jeopardy. Both films failed critically and commercially at the box office against larger scale budgets, though becoming fan favorites in later years. But for the Salkinds, the future of the Superman franchise seemed in jeopardy. They would eventually attend the Cannes Film Festival in May 1985 with the hopes of selling the film rights to Superman to anyone who would get the franchise up and running again.

Around that same time, Warner Bros. decided it was time to get the Superman franchise back on track after the middling response to Superman III and the failure of Supergirl. They turned to the two men who helped make the first two Superman films a huge success – Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz – with hopes of steering the movies to success once again. And they were told just one thing: “Name your price.” After considering the studio’s offer, Donner and Mankiewicz thought it over but ultimately turned down the potential lucrative prospect, having exhausted all of their ideas for the series several years earlier. In a 2001 online interview Donner stated, “It would have been just for the money.” (Donner would eventually go on to direct the first installment of the Lethal Weapon series, and Mankiewicz would direct and co-write the big screen version of Dragnet, both of which would be released in 1987, the same year as Superman IV.)

According to Spengler, Alexander Salkind released them to find a producer who would take the ball and run with it. “‘If you guys don’t make it, someone’s gonna make it, and we’re just not gonna let the property sleep.’”

Enter an even more unlikely dynamic duo: Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus. The two Israeli-born cousins had made names for themselves as the heads of Cannon Films throughout the 1980’s, and it was not uncommon to turn on HBO, or go to your local video store on a Friday or Saturday night, and find a boatload of cheaply produced Cannon films that seemed to find some kind of audience. The Death Wish series with Charles Bronson, numerous action movies featuring Chuck Norris, and schlocky low-budget horror movies were churned out at a rapid pace in those days faster than the eye could blink. And who can forget that immortal classic Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo? To Golan and Globus, blockbusters and awards were the farthest things from their minds. It was all for the love of the movies.

But by the mid 1980’s, they began considering more mainstream projects. They didn’t want to be seen as low-budget producers forever. And one of the projects that they set their eyes on was the Superman series. In the Look! Up in the Sky documentary, Ilya Salkind stated, “I said, ‘I don’t want to do Superman IV, so then we were able to sell the rights for an option to Cannon.” They would buy the rights from the Salkinds in May 1985 for a one-time deal with the hopes of crossing over into serious Hollywood fare. As with all of their other projects, they reached out to foreign backers to get financial support for the film. And they turned to the one man who they felt would guarantee their ticket to success: Christopher Reeve.

Golan said in a 2006 interview for the You Will Believe documentary, “We were lucky to get the rights, to succeed in getting the rights to Superman IV from Warner Bros. And I told Yoram, my cousin, the president of Cannon, ‘It’s time we do a comic book story.’”

Yoram Globus added, “We wanted to bring, I think, something new and fresh to Superman. And that’s why we decided to put Superman saving the world from nuclear weapons.”

Nearly three years had passed since Reeve had publicly stated that he was through with the role, and that he was more interested in pursuing serious film and stage roles. But enough time had passed, and even his resistance to the part had eased to the point where he felt that he could return to the series if, like Alexander Salkind before him, it would be done right. He agreed under the conditions that he would star in a project of his own choosing and that he would have a chance at story and directorial development. With Reeve back in the part, and his commitment to Street Smart in place, Superman IV began to take shape. Some of the original cast members – Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure, and Susannah York – returned to their roles, with new cast members in Mariel Hemingway, Sam Wanamaker, and Jon Cryer added to the lineup.

McClure stated in the You Will Believe documentary, “The only way there would be a fourth is if Chris wanted to do it. And you know, everyone wants to make money, and it’d be great to do another one to try to have everybody forget about number III. I think what happened in number IV is that Chris was doing something that he wanted to do. You know, become more involved in how Superman was shaped. I think that’s what got everybody back together. If it wasn’t for Chris, Superman IV wouldn’t have happened.”

The story, which Reeve developed with Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, focused on Superman’s attempt to end the nuclear arms crisis of the 1980’s and Lex Luthor taking advantage of the situation to find another way to destroy the Man of Steel. The core story had timely inspirations. Reeve had narrated a short film entitled A Letter to Our Parents, about a group of middle school students expressing their fears about living in a nuclear age. Around the same time, young Samantha Smith, who had piloted a plane from the United States to the Soviet Union on a mission of goodwill, had sadly died. And DC Comics had published an issue of the “Superman” comic in 1985 which similarly centered around his fears and worries regarding the nuclear arms crisis.

It seemed like a solid story at first, despite Tom Mankiewicz advising Reeve not to go through with the idea, feeling that Superman would not focus on shaping the destiny of his adopted home. Mankiewicz also said during the audio commentary on the Donner Cut, “Chris, God bless him, he was so altruistic in so many ways, and he wanted Superman IV to be the quest for peace about nuclear disarmament. And he came to me and Terry (Semel) because I was still at Warners, and Terry said, ‘Will you help on the script?’

“And I said to Chris, ‘Look, I can’t get in your way about doing something that you obviously feel so deeply, but I can tell you as a writer, stay out of things that Superman can fix by himself. He doesn’t have to go to the UN, he can disarm the world. You cannot have a tsunami that kills fifty thousand people, or 100,000 people, in a Superman movie because he can stop a tsunami the way he stops the earthquake. He stops the water from reaching the school and saves the kids. Don’t get into famine. Superman can feed the world. Just stay inside what Superman is and the fun of it, and you can be as sentimental as you want to, and as meaningful as you want to, but don’t get into areas like the first draft of Batman…”

Screenwriter Mark Rosenthal stated in the You Will Believe documentary, “Chris mentioned that since they were trying to restart the series, and he felt Superman needed some special edge to it, this was the movie that asked the big question: why doesn’t Superman help us? And that made a very difficult equation to solve.”

Once Donner and Mankiewicz had declined the opportunity to return, the door was wide open for anyone to come in. Richard Lester was approached to direct IV, which he turned down, and Ron Howard was also considered. At one point horror director Wes Craven, best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street, was attached to the film, but his views on the film clashed with Reeve’s, and he eventually departed the film.

Eventually, Sidney J. Furie, who had helmed the 1965 spy thriller The Ipcress File and had a minor hit in 1986 with Iron Eagle, agreed to direct. Globus stated, “At least going in, all of us believed that Sidney Furie would be the right one.”

In an interview with Starlog, Furie recalled his meeting with Warner Bros. executives about taking on the task of directing Superman IV. “When I got hired, I mentioned to Warner Bros. about how bad Superman III was, and their response was, ‘Oh yeah, boy, was it bad. Fifty million dollars in film rentals. Give us half of that and we’ll be happy.’”

Photographing the film was Ernest Day, who had been a camera operator on Lawrence of Arabia two decades before. And Harrison Ellenshaw, who had worked on the original Star Wars ten years before, was tapped to handle the film’s many visual effects. Instead of Pinewood Studios, the film would be based out of Elstree Studios in England (which had also been one of the key production studios for Star Wars). Warner Bros. would handle the domestic release in the United States and Canada, while Cannon Films would handle the film’s international release in numerous markets, among them England, France, the Netherlands, and Japan.

With credentials like these, you would think that Superman IV would have been as fun and exciting as the first two films and even better than Superman III.

Wrong.

Where did Superman IV go wrong? Stay tuned…

This will be a short blog today, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up following on yesterday’s blog about the Superman 4K releases next year…

According to Bill Hunt of the Digital Bits website, Amazon.co.uk has posted a tentative release date for the upcoming 4k release of Superman III year. This is taken directly from their website…

Nothing has been officially confirmed by Warner Home Video at this point, so take it with a grain of salt. But could we see the films on 4K next spring? We’ll all find out!

Secondly, I am working on a surprise project. I cannot go into the details because I’m sworn to secrecy. “I ain’t saying what it is. Just… trust me.”

Here is a Muppet news flash…

We now have an official updated word on the news of the Superman films coming to 4K next year, and this is straight from Warner Bros. directly.

According to the remastering team at Warner Bros., only the theatrical versions of Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace are being remastered and prepped for 4K physical release in 2023. This will likely include a new remaster of the first film, which, as we know, did not meet everyone’s expectations.

In addition, we will see a new 4K remaster of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut included as well. This is going to be the 116 minute cut of the film that was released in 2006, and not the 122 minute cut that was released on Vudu and Amazon.

Furthermore, there is no word on the extended TV cuts of Superman II and Superman III or the original 134 minute version of Superman IV at this point, but it is believed that since the Warner Archive released the 188 minute extended TV cut of Superman: The Movie and the 124 minute international cut of Supergirl on Blu-ray, it is likely that they will handle the Blu-ray releases of the sequels as well.

Update: In a bit of unfortunate news, we will not see a new 4K remaster of Richard Donner’s 151 minute special edition of Superman: The Movie from 2001, which means the best version out there for now is the Blu-ray version from 2011.

That’s all we know at this point. As more news becomes available, I’ll pass it along to you.

Many thanks to Jim Bowers and the CapedWonder Superman Podcast for bringing this news to light for everyone.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Superman films is the usage of particular source music within each film. Whenever a film uses particular songs from a certain genre – whether pop, rock, country, oldies, you name it – licensing fees are paid to the respective holders of those songs so they can be heard in a film. And the Superman films are no exception.

When John Williams created the stirring score to Superman: The Movie in 1978, one of the more unique parts of the scoring process came in creating several pieces of instrumental source music for different points in the film. Whether it was “Kansas Kids”, “Kansas High School” (“Heavy Bubble Gum a la the Dragon Lady”) or even the humorous “Luthor’s Luau” (“Another Navy Grog, Please”), the source music added more layers to the overall tapestry of the film. Much of this source music was not utilized for the theatrical version of the film with the exception of “Luthor’s Luau”, though some of those cues were later heard in the extended TV release in 1982. All of Williams’ source music (along with source cues never heard in any version of the film) were featured on the 2018 CD release of the scores to Superman II and Superman III from LaLaLand Records.

For the theatrical release, we first heard the 1954 song “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets in two places, once when we saw Lana Lang, Brad, and the cheerleaders leave Smallville High School, and a little later as they drive through the wheat fields and reach the Kent farm. This song would be replaced with the two John Williams source pieces “Kansas High School” and “Kansas Kids” for the extended TV cut.

This is followed a little later by the Platters’ 1955 hit “Only You (and You Alone)”, which can be faintly heard under the static on Clark Kent’s radio when he wakes up to a mysterious sound coming from the barn. The song would be completely dialed out of the 1982 TV cut.

Next up, we have the 1977 hit “Give a Little Bit” by Supertramp (the only song to be featured in all versions of the film), heard as Lois Lane approaches the abandoned gas station.

Finally, we have a marvelous rendition of “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby”, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, which was originally recorded in 1938 and first performed by Dick Powell for the movie Hard to Get. This song is heard only in the extended TV cut towards the end of the film, performed by Gene Hackman, as Lex Luthor prepares to sacrifice Miss Teschmacher to his “babies” for her betrayal to Superman.

Many musicians of the time recorded the song, and in 1938 alone there were no less than six different versions all recorded within a short span of time, the most popular version having been recorded by Bing Crosby. This is one version that I came across on Spotify that was recorded by Tommy Dorsey that year:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2vAMooq3ULsq0soAg0Wr0K?si=SOFNy2vJQS2HV4dR0UOtEw

The process would continue in Superman II, which used the classic 1974 rock song “Pick Up the Pieces” from the Average White Band in the now-famous moment when Zod and Ursa encounter some of the townspeople of East Houston, Idaho. Composer Ken Thorne would write a soundalike source piece for the final diner scene of the film.

For Superman III Ken Thorne and the producers would utilize even more recognizable songs throughout the film. The first and most recognizable of these song is the Beatles’ rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven”, which was recorded for their second studio album With the Beatles in 1963, and it is heard during the first half of the Smallville High School reunion dance.

Following this is the popular song “Earth Angel”, recorded by the Penguins in 1954, which is heard in the moment when Clark and Lana dance together. This was actually the B-side of their 45 rpm release; the A-side was a song called “Hey Senorita”, which they thought was going to be the hit, but sales and airplay proved otherwise.

Later on in the film, we get to hear Christopher Reeve perform a piano solo of the song in the gym, and the song would be featured in many different movies, most memorably in Back to the Future during the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

And then there’s “King Cotton” by John Philip Sousa. This traditional military march, which was originally composed in 1895, is heard during the scene of the Smallville High School band performing when the town honors Superman for his then-recent rescues.

Many versions of “King Cotton” can be easily accessed. This is one version of the march that can be found on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/4dVVRxnYU3mikje9606m6l?si=930wByU6TPiBQmqOPcqxAQ

Normally, in any movie where songs are licensed, proper crediting is given to the writers, performers, and the original album labels of those particular songs. For the first three Superman films, oddly enough, this did not happen.

But that’s not the last licensed song that would be featured in the film series. In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, we get to hear “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, recorded in 1957 at the legendary Sun Records by Jerry Lee Lewis, whom we just lost just last month. It’s heard in the film when we see Lenny Luthor approach the prison quarry to spring his uncle Lex free.

Later in the film, we hear Lex Luthor contact Superman via a sonic greeting by singing the opening to “Hello, Dolly.” The song was first written and scored by Jerry Herman, and first recorded in December 1963 by Louis Armstrong as a demo only one month before the opening of the Broadway musical of the same name, where it would be publicly performed for the first time by Carol Channing in the musical.

But that’s not all! Even in the 1984 Supergirl spinoff film we can hear two songs from Howard Jones in the film, “New Song” and his popular hit “What is Love?” taken from the 1983 album Human’s Lib. The latter song was heard in a darkly humorous moment in the 2018 film Black Panther, sung by Andy Serkis as he is held prisoner and awaiting interrogation.

A few years ago I created my own playlist of these songs on Spotify to accompany the Superman films and the three soundtrack CD releases from LaLaLand Records. It was pretty easy to construct, having identified all of the songs from the films and putting the playlist together. And you can, too, whether it’s through Spotify or Amazon Music or iTunes or wherever you listen to music. Just set it up and enjoy!

So far I have addressed the differences between both versions of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut and referenced the specific differences between the 116-minute version that was released on DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray in 2006 and the longer 122-minute version that was released on multiple streaming platforms in 2015, focusing primarily on the footage and the audio revisions in said footage.

Now we come to the back story behind it all.

“There are questions to be asked, and it is time for you to do so…. we shall try to find the answers together..”

Altogether, the cuts made to the film total seven minutes, 50 seconds in length, with 1:13 of the footage shot by Richard Donner at Shepperton Studios in May 1977, and the remaining six minutes, 37 seconds of footage shot by Richard Lester at Pinewood Studios in 1979.

It brings us to the first question: why were the cuts made to the film?

The obvious observation goes back to the difference in directors and footage. By the time shooting on Superman II had been halted in October 1977, Dick Donner had shot approximately 81 percent of the film at the same time (including all outtakes and alternate takes that appeared in the theatrical and extended TV versions). The remaining scenes that had yet to be filmed by that point included the final version of Lois tricking Clark into becoming Superman, the villains’ rampage through the world, any remaining scenes of Superman and Lois in the Fortress, and the majority of the showdown in Metropolis. In order to meet its release date, Donner and company worked on completing the first Superman film, including moving the ending of II onto the first film. He and Tom Mankiewicz agreed that they would figure out a new ending to II once they returned to work on the sequel.

And then in 1979 came the ill-fated telegram from the Salkinds. “Beware the ides of March,” the saying goes. Richard Donner was out, and Richard Lester took over as director. Donner had felt betrayed by Lester, with whom he had developed a cordial friendship during filming on Superman. Even when Lester had volunteered to help Donner shoot scenes on the first film, Donner turned down his offer, and Lester backed off, but the two remained on good terms during shooting.

Lester would not only reshoot a number of scenes but also film a number of scenes that Donner had intended to shoot – including Lois tricking Clark into becoming Superman, the scenes at Niagara Falls, the villains’ rampage, and the battle in Metropolis. In addition, Lester and the Salkinds shelved all of Marlon Brando’s footage for the sequel, replacing him with Susannah York in two key scenes at the Fortress of Solitude. The Salkinds cited the removal of the Brando footage as necessary in order to tighten the growing budget of the films, which had already grown to approximately $55 million at the time.

In assembling the Donner Cut, Donner and film restoration producer/editor Michael Thau had to eventually deal with the Lester footage. There was simply no choice. According to Thau, “he didn’t want to deal too much with the Lester scenes that needed to be left in to make a complete story. But I realized after a while that he had been familiar with those scenes, and they hurt him. I think that was a sore spot.”

This is further reinforced by a 1998 interview with Richard Lester on American Movie Classics, at the time the network premiered Superman II in widescreen format, in which he referred to it as “his” film without acknowledging any of Donner’s work at all. In turn, in all interviews and promotional materials for the Donner Cut, Donner would never refer to Lester by name, referring to Lester instead as “another director” or “a fellow, I forget his name on purpose”. Even in the end credits, Lester’s name is purposely left off the credits, though the majority of the credits is repurposed from the theatrical version.

Once Michael Thau completed the 122-minute cut of the film, and once it received approval from the Motion Picture Association of America, it becomes evident that Donner requested more cuts to the film, with an apparent intention to dial down as much emphasis on the Lester footage without sacrificing coherence to the overall story. This resulted in the loss of six minutes of Lester footage in the middle of the film, leaving the final edits awkward at times, but coherent enough for viewers to enjoy the film and understand those scenes. As for the edits to Donner’s Fortress footage, one can only conclude that it was to distinguish the scene from the theatrical version and the extended TV broadcast (which had no directorial input).

Which brings us to the next question: what happened to this print of the film, and why was it never released on DVD and Blu-ray?

Once the final edits were made to the main and end title credits, and once the final version of the film was prepared for DVD and Blu-ray release, it obviously became clear that it would was not necessary to release a second cut of the film at the same time. (A similar situation occurred in 1984 when Supergirl was released in the United States with a running length of 105 minutes, while at the same time a 124-minute version of the film was issued on videotape in Japan.) Because Donner did not approve of this version of the film, it was shelved in the vaults at Warner Bros.

However, by 2015, with the advent of digital streaming services, this 122-minute cut of the film soon became available on Amazon and Vudu and would eventually follow on Fandango Now, Google Play Movies, and Microsoft Movies and TV. Only iTunes and Movies Anywhere would not follow suit, streaming the 116-minute version instead. (On Movies Anywhere, the title cards appearing before the Warner Bros. logo would be omitted from the film.) Why Vudu would alternate between the 116-minute version and the 122-minute version is beyond me. As of this writing, Vudu and Amazon currently carry the 122-minute cut.

Since the release of the Richard Donner Cut of Superman II, no less than three films in a consecutive three-year period also experienced changes in directors, resulting in much of their original footage being shelved in favor of the final version of each respective film. There was Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016, with a significant portion of Gareth Edwards’ original cut reshot by Tony Gilroy. The following year, Zack Snyder would leave Justice League, Joss Whedon would take over, and the final film was a critical and commercial disaster. Snyder would later return to the film and bring his project to completion in a four-hour cut for HBO Max in 2021. And in 2018, we had Solo: A Star Wars Story, in which Ron Howard had reshot over 80 percent of the film originally shot by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, which was also a commercial box office failure. In the case of the Star Wars spinoff films, the original footage remains locked away in the Lucasfilm studio vaults, and fans have called for the studios to release the original directors’ versions of both films to this date.

In recent years we have seen multiple versions of films released in comprehensive collections for fans to enjoy and compare. It is not uncommon for two or three versions of a film to be collected on DVD, Blu-ray, or 4K in a single package. Films such as Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Orson Welles’ Mr. Arkadin (aka Confidential Report) immediately come to mind. Other films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the original Star Wars trilogy have had multiple versions released on disc, but in separate releases. Even the first Superman film has seen all of its versions issued on disc but in separate individual releases.

Perhaps one day we will see a comprehensive collection of all four versions of Superman II gathered together in one complete package. With the recent announcement of the four Superman films coming to 4K in 2023, anything is possible. Or maybe a Warner Archive release. It’s still too early to tell.

For now, another piece of the mystery that is Superman II has been confirmed, giving film students and fans further reason to study and research both Richard Donner’s and Richard Lester’s footage, and to appreciate the film for what it is, pluses and minuses included.

Special thanks to Brad Day and George Noriega for valuable information, and many special thanks to Jim Bowers for your friendship and assistance in this research.

• 

Yesterday I discussed the additions that were found in the first Fortress of Solitude sequence in the longer alternate version of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, found on Vudu and Amazon. Now let’s turn our attention to the Richard Lester footage that is in this alternate cut.

The majority of the cuts to the film occur in the middle of the film, centering around the villains’ arrival and attack in East Houston and Superman and Lois’ dinner at the Fortress, all of which was filmed during Richard Lester’s tenure on the film in 1979. Let’s analyze each specific scene and address the changes between the two Donner Cuts.

• 

0:49:41 – 0:51:18 – Deputy Dwayne confronts the Phantom Zone villains – In the original version of the scene, the sheriff’s line “You gotta learn to kick a– if you want to be a peacemaker” is retained, along with the shot of the sheriff encouraging Dwayne on. Both of these clips are removed from the final Donner Cut. Much of Ken Thorne’s underscore for the scene would also be cut from the scene as well, with Donner and Thau preferring to play the exchange without music instead. The music would pick up again when Zod uses his heat vision on the rifle. Once Zod fires the rifle, we then see Dwayne’s silent reaction – this is the same alternate shot that appears in the extended TV broadcast. It would be replaced with the same reaction from Non as in the theatrical version, along with Dwayne’s profanity-laced response.

• 

The scene continues as in the theatrical version, but with some notable audio changes. First, when Non lifts up the car, Dwayne’s line “Just checking the tire” has been removed from the scene. New sound effects of the sheriff’s grunts and the police siren dying out have been added, while Non’s grunt and Zod’s sigh have been removed from the scene. Finally, the music has been moved up slightly to end the scene, as the original shot of Non cradling the siren in his arms has been cut from the film.

In this version of the Donner Cut, the sequence of events runs 1:37 in length. It would be substantially cut down to 45 seconds in the final version, with 52 seconds cut from the film.

0:51:13 – 0:51:48 – The next scene to be included in the alternate Donner Cut is of Superman cooking the souffle in the Fortress (which was taken from the extended TV broadcast). The main changes to the scene are a new sound effect for Superman’s heat vision and a partial music replacement with the original end notes from John Williams’ cue “The Mugger” (much of which would be dialed out from the first Superman film but be heard in its entirety on the 2000 Rhino CD and the 2008 Blue Box CD set). The 35-second clip would be cut from the film but included as the sole deleted scene on the 2006 Superman II special edition DVD.

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0:51:48 – 0:55:06 – Next is the entire scene of the villains’ arrival and first attack in East Houston, which was completely edited from the final Donner Cut. In this scene, which runs 3:18 in length, numerous changes are made in terms of music replacement, sound effects, and dialogue. When Non tests his heat vision, the sound effect has been replaced, and music from “The Planet Krypton” has been added over the shot. Inside the diner, when Ursa tosses the man over the table, Zod’s sigh has been removed.

The most obvious replacement in the scene is the removal of the boy Willie’s (Marcus D’Amico) equally obvious British accent with an American one instead, relooped by voice actor Austin Majors. As Zod begins his attack on the townspeople, retracked music from “The Planet Krypton” is again included through the scene. Once the hotel owner points his rifle at Zod, the levitation beam has been completely removed from the film (a CGI makeover), along with its corresponding sound effect.

The scene then changes to Willie’s escape by horse and Non tossing the police siren and killing him, which was also taken from the extended TV broadcast. In addition to dialogue replacement, music from “Leaving Home” and “Destruction of Krypton” is tracked over the scene. This clip would be divided into two parts and included in the “You Will Believe” documentary for the 14-disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD set.

0:55:06 – 0:56:21 – The movie then cuts to the scene of Superman and Lois’ dinner at the Fortress. Only one sound effect has been replaced, that of the popping champagne cork. The scene then continues as in the theatrical release, ending with Superman and Lois holding hands, with no further changes. The sequence runs 1:15 in length in this version of the film but is cut down to 57 seconds for the final Donner Cut, with 18 seconds cut from the final film.

The scene is further edited down for the final version, with the long shot of Superman standing up removed from the film. Once Lois says, “It’s all confusing,” the beat of Superman laughing is also cut, and the scene quickly moves to his response, “Not to me, it isn’t.” The footage from the first part of his next line, “For the first time in my life…” is cut, and the dialogue is placed over Lois’ close-up. Once he says, “…everything’s clear,” the exchange between Lois and Superman is also cut from the film, immediately jumping instead to Superman taking Lois’ hand. The dialogue to the next scene, in which the reporter says, “This is East Houston, Idaho,” is placed over the footage to transition to the next scene.

0:56:21 – 0:58:28 – The next scene, of the reporter covering the villains’ arrival and their attack on the Army, plays intact in this version of the Donner Cut, with changes to music, sound effects, and CGI flame enhancement, and no cuts in the scene, which runs 2:07 here. The introduction of the scene, when the reporter states, “Good morning America,” is cut from the final version, and the dialogue placed over the footage of Superman taking Lois’ hand.

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As the attack begins, the footage of Non using his heat vision a second time is cut, along with the footage of the Army jeep crashing through the building, later replaced with a crashing sound effect and an awkward music replacement edit retracked from “The Helicopter Sequence”. After the jeep crash, the shot of the resident asking, “Are you all right, buddy?” would also be cut from the final version.

Once the Army soldiers fire the flame gun upon Zod, after the flames hit the diner, the footage continues as in the theatrical version, of Zod’s brief smile, of the fleeing patron, and the exchange between Zod and Ursa – all of this footage was cut from the final Donner Cut, picking up with the reporter commenting on Zod’s actions.

As a result of the edits, the final version of the scene runs 1:41 in length, 26 seconds shorter than its counterpart in the alternate Donner Cut or the original theatrical release.

0:58:57 – 1:00:28 – The second part of the villains’ attack on the military is identical in appearance as in the theatrical release, running 1:31 in total, and has its share of differences between this version and the final Donner Cut. The first part of the reporter’s description is dialed out during the attack, which would be entirely edited out of the film. The footage of the Army officers firing on the villains is cut from the scene in the final Donner Cut, picking up with Non in the crosshairs.

The shot of the helicopter closing in on the villains would also be cut from the scene, as is the shot of the Army officers ordering everyone to clear the area, picking up instead with the first shot upon Zod. One shot from the theatrical version, of Ursa blinking as she walks toward Zod, has been cut from the sequence. In the shot of Deputy Dwayne ducking for cover, the voiceover of the helicopter pilot saying, “The rockets don’t have any effect!” has been removed from the shot and replaced with retracked music and sound effects.

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The model effects shot of the helicopter, before it crashes into the building, plays as in the theatrical release, but for the final Donner Cut the shot is electronically sped up. The shots of Ursa smiling in glee, and the second explosion, are present in this cut, but are also edited from the final Donner Cut. The cuts to the footage bring the running length of the scene down to 1:04, with 27 seconds trimmed from the sequence.

1:00:28 – 1:00:53 – The scene of Superman and Lois asleep in bed is similar in length to its theatrical counterpart, running 25 seconds long, but it also has its differences. The close-up of Margot Kidder opening and closing her eyes is the same as in the final Donner Cut, but it crossfades into an added, previously unseen outtake of Superman and Lois asleep. This outtake was trimmed from the final Donner Cut, bringing the scene down to 19 seconds in length.

1:00:53 – 1:01:44 – In this sequence, of Zod making his declaration to the townspeople, no footage has been cut from the theatrical version, and it contains the same retracked music from the cue “Destruction of Krypton”, but there is one significant difference between the version seen here and the version seen in the final Donner Cut. In this version, when the Army general states, “I answer only to the President,” the voiceover for the general is still the same as in the theatrical release. After this assembly, the voiceover would be re-recorded for the final Donner Cut.

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1:57:54 – 2:02:28 – The end credits for this version of the Donner Cut are slightly different than what appears in the final version. Here, Ken Thorne’s credit is not present. It would be restored for the final film as “Additional music composed and conducted by Ken Thorne”, appearing after Peter Murton’s credit.

Toward the end of the film credits, after all of the credits for the 2006 reconstruction have appeared, a title card appears, reading, “Priceless enthusiasm and support: George Feltenstein and Paul Hemstreet”, a reference to the two Warner Bros. executives who gave their support for the commission of the Donner Cut. For some reason, this title card was cut from the final end credits.

At the end of the film, two single title cards appear: “No real fur was used in the making of this film,” and “The filmmakers do not endorse the use of tobacco.” Richard Donner would revise these statements into a final title card which reads, “Since the making of this film in the late 1970s, a greater awareness has developed regarding the cruelty to animals in connection with the fur business, and the health risks associated with smoking and second hand smoke. Therefore I do not condone the use of tobacco and fur products as depicted in this film.”

Next time, we bring this analysis to a conclusion!