Looks like the Donner cut of Superman II may have jumped through its legal hurdles!!! (1 Viewer)

YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!

Bryan Singer will be using a deleted Brando scene from Superman II in his upcoming film Superman Returns. I guess this means Warner may have finally cleared all the legal hurdles keeping them from using the Brando footage for Superman II, which can only bode well for the upcoming DVD double dips that will coincide with the new film.

Further confirmation can be found here:

http://www.latinoreview.com/scoops/jorel-superman.html

I'd like to point out that both sites listed are very accurate with their movie news. Pop the champagne, we may finally get Supes II as it was meant to be!

i need more sources before i jump through any hoops.

but thanks for the heads up anyway.

on the contrary, i would say if this actually did pan out as it is allegedly planned, i would expect that to push back farther any attempt to re-use the same footage in a recut of the earlier film.

there would just be no incentive for the studio "now see the lost footage for a second time in another film!"
or for the creative personel involved (Donner in this case) to want to invite comparisons to Singers new work after giving him his blessing on the project.

I have mixed feelings about this. Perhaps it is true, but then again, if they were to replace Christopher Reeve in those scenes, it would just be wrong.

But then again... I'll bet that on the DVD they would probably have the original scene with Reeve intact.

Hell, Warner Bros., just bring it on.

Wouldn't the old scenes clash with the new movie? I rather they recreate scenes than use old footage. Its not like a two year old footage, its a twenty-two year old footage.

I would guess if this went down it would involve only using Brando. I'm sure they'd just take only his image and dialogue from those unused scenes and insert them digitally into whatever new footage is shot at the Fortress of Solitude set or whatever.

Now I don't think this means a Donner cut is forthcoming either. It wouldnt make much sense with Singer's new movie using the backstory of the first two movies.

Supposedly that Brando stuff is very specific to the plot of Superman 2, about giving up the powers etc.. If they're using it, I think it would have to be in flashback, directly connecting the new movie to the old. If they bothered to clear through the red tape of that footage it seems like they'd want to get as much mileage out of it as possible. So, maybe this is good news for S2 dvd?

Yay! Maybe Warner will realize they can make cash on a director's cut reissue of Superman 2 on DVD timed with the new film's release!

Capitalism working? Customers getting what they want? Maybe so!

this new superman sounds more like a trainwreck every week to me

I'm excited that one day we could finally see this footage. I cannot however get too excited about the new movie.... and I am a huge Supes fan.

Man, I got all excited from the thread title, and then I read that post...


They'd have to make up a new term, 'Superman 2' already has a director, and it wasn't Richard Donner.

Uh, I think that would qualify as a legal hurdle. Use the footage without paying, and you get big, fat lawsuit on your hands. Hence the 'legality' issue.

True, but as mentioned it's not the only hurdle that they would have to negotiate. As was stated earlier, Donner was pulled off of the project before filming all of his footage. Lester had new pages written to fill the gaps and shot other scenes differently. Gene Hackman didn't return either forcing the use of a stand-in and that horrible voice-over. The accomplishment of a new Donner cut exactly as he planned it would require some type of reshoots, but that is quite impossile since everyone involved has aged considerably or passed on. The best we could hope for is an assemblage of available footage by Donner as opposed to his true version.

I also don't see this development as hope towards Donner doing a new cut of Superman II, but rather another hurdle. I think that if Donner did indeed have plans to do a recut version, he wouldn't have given Singer his blessing to go after the Brando footage.

Call me a pessimist, but this sounds more like a death knell than hope.

We could split hairs on this all day; if you want to take that as a legal hurdle, fine, but it wasn't a legal hurdle which was holding up the full release, it was a very specific hurdle -- I'd say a financial one, because I thought it was that they didn't want to pay the huge amount he wanted, not that they considered using it without paying him a la 'Back to the Future II', but I wouldn't argue the point -- holding up a very specific piece of the full release, but one which NEVER would've been put in even if Donner had come back and directed all of 'Superman II'.

Even if Donner had done it, the Salkinds wouldn't have wanted to pay Brando.

Legal hurdles almost always go away when you pay the unhappy party. So that's a distinction without a difference.

And "train wreck" sounds just about right for this messed-up production.

I think you can do one better:

Let Donner go in and restore all of his scenes, then go into Lester's material and recut that footage to the best of his ability in order to fill any gaps. Basically, give Donner the same power over Lester's footage that Lester had over Donner's footage back in 1981. Seems only fair.

No, it won't be a true "Director's Cut" (more like an "Uncredited Co-Director's Recut") but it will be a fascinating and worthwhile alternate version. And, I'm betting, a better film.

Charlie,

Being as you are who you are, are you hinting or hoping?

Only hoping, I'm afraid.