Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

May 2, 2007

Rated: PG Runtime: 116 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Back in 2004 there was a film called EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING. It was directed by Rennie Harlin and starred Stellan Skarsgard. The film got fairly good critical views, but didn’t make much of a splash at the Box Office.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut A friend of mine who’d seen the film was flipping channels one night and came across what he thought was the film. After all, it was an obvious prequel to THE EXORCIST, and starred Stellan Skarsgard – what else could it be? But as he watched, he began to think he was hallucinating: Every scene from the film was different.

He thought reality was on the blink. It’s something akin to discovering there’s a porn version of THE WIZARD OF OZ filmed with the original 1939 cast.

What actually happened was, the EXORCIST prequel was originally shot by a completely different director, Paul Schrader. The producers didn’t like the results, so they hired Rennie Harlin to completely reshoot the film. With the expense of moviemaking, it’s incredible that this could ever happen.

Eventually, Paul Schrader’s version was released as DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST. It too got fairly good critical reviews. Which one is the “real” EXORCIST prequel? It’s more like two versions of the film from parallel universes.

Which brings us to the Richard Donner version of SUPERMAN II.

Donner (Director of the LETHAL WEAPON movies, etc.) directed the first SUPERMAN movie. He was 75% finished with SUPERMAN II when the producers fired him. They brought in Richard Lester (A HARD DAY’S NIGHT) to finish the film.

I’ve always thought SUPERMAN II is a fun film; when the supervillains are tossing manhole covers and buses at Superman, it really captured the feel of comic books in a way that hadn’t been done before.

But, 25 years later, the studio gathered together the old footage and decided to release a version that was more like what Richard Donner had in mind.

Marlin Brando is back in the film in this version (he’d been axed over salary demands), so Suzanna York is out.

There are more scenes with Gene Hackman.

Lois and Clark’s trip to Niagara Falls takes a very different direction.

And the supervillain fight has less slapstick in it.

This film is a strange artifact. It’s not a better film than the Richard Lester version (I think one of the reasons the producers canned Donner, besides for the film going over-budget, was that they felt he was trying for a tone that was too epic and not comic-book enough). But if you’re a fan of the original film (and perhaps even more if you disliked the original SUPERMAN II), it’s a fascinating bit of alternate history.

Kneel before Zod… all over again!

Posted by Mack Guffin | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Christopher Reeve, Comedy, DVD, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, PG, Sarah Douglas, SciFi, Terrance Stamp