Growing up, while watching Superman II over and over again on VHS, I couldn’t help but ask myself a few questions. Questions like – where’s Marlon Brando as Jor-El? Why does the music sound so shitty? Why does another actor dub Gene Hackman for like half of his dialogue? Why do Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder look so different from scene to scene? Why is it so tonally uneven? In a pre-internet era, where the drama on movie sets wasn’t chronicled in real-time online, no one really got what the deal was with Superman II. Once the internet became a thing, word of what really went on behind the scenes of Superman II went from being an urban legend to a confirmed fact.
Superman: The Movie was financed by Alexander Salkind and his son Ilya. They were movie moguls who, in the seventies, had produced two highly successful Three Musketeer movies. While shooting the first of those films, they found the film they produced was running long, so they hatched the idea of splitting it into two. As a result, we got The Three Musketeers and then, a year later, The Four Musketeers. Both films were successful, and the way they were released inspired Quentin Tarantino to do the same thing with Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 many years later.
However, they wound up in legal trouble when some of the stars of the Musketeer movies sued them, as they thought they were appearing in one film but wound up acting in two. In fact, this led to the creation of a “Salkind Clause” in the Screen Actors Guild, which guaranteed a single movie could not be split in two without the express consent of the actors.
So, what does this have to do with Superman?
When having the mammoth script put together for Superman: The Movie, the Salkinds once again decided that they would make two movies rather than one, although this time, rather than lop a film in half, they would always shoot two films together right from the get-go. They hired Richard Donner, then hot off The Omen, to direct, and in fact, the first scene ever shot in a Superman movie was a scene from the second film when Clark, after having lost his powers, has them restored by his father, Kai El, played by Marlon Brando.
However, during the shooting of Superman, tensions began to rise between Donner, the Salkinds, and producer Pierre Spengler. It got so bad that Richard Lester, who had directed the Musketeer movies and had actually sued the Salkinds previously, was bought in to work as an intermediary. With the proposed release date of the first Superman movie rapidly approaching, the decision was made to stop shooting Superman II, which was 75% done, and complete the first film, returning to direct the last chunk of the sequel after the first film came out.
Despite Superman – The Movie being a major hit, Donner, Spengler, and the Salkinds could not resolve their differences, and despite his already having shot 75% of the film, Donner was fired. To add insult to injury, Lester, who was supposed to be Donner’s ally, was brought in to finish the film. Rather than simply shoot the remaining scenes, writers David and Leslie Newman were brought in to write extensive new material for Lester to shoot, with the resulting film estimated to be at least 40% of Lester’s footage. Initially, Lester thought he and Donner would share screen credit, but Donner declined his credit, as the finished film was not something he wanted his name on.
Replacing Donner wound up having dire consequences for the film. Gene Hackman, who played Lex Luthor admired Donner tremendously. Known to be a prickly character, Hackman was charmed by the strong-willed Donner when, during the negotiations for the first film, Hackman insisted that he would not shave his moustache to play Lex Luthor. Donner offered the following compromise: if Hackman would shave his moustache, Donner would shave his. Hackman agreed, but when he showed up on the set Donner still had his moustache. He asked Donner why he hadn’t shaved, and, with a wink, he peeled off what turned out to be a fake moustache, as he had never had one and was conning Hackman. Rather than be upset, Hackman respected Donner’s chutzpah, and the two became fast friends. As such, when Donner was fired, Hackman refused to return for the required reshoots and declined to participate in any looping sessions. As such, half of his dialogue is dubbed by someone doing a bad Gene Hackman impersonation, while body doubles are used for the bits he wouldn’t reshoot.
Hackman wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t return. Tom Mankiewicz, who served as the first film’s “creative consultant” but actually rewrote most of the script, passed once he realized how badly his friend Donner was being screwed. So did editor Stuart Baird. Marlon Brando also refused to allow any of the footage he shot for Superman II to be used, but this was due to a financial disagreement, as a court case ruled he would receive 11% of the movie’s gross if they used his performance. In another cost-cutting measure, they replaced composer John Williams with the much cheaper Ken Thorne, who worked with a smaller orchestra, which is why the themes by John Williams sound so weak in Superman II.
Donner’s replacement also soured relationships between the Salkinds and stars Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve. Reeve initially refused to return for reshoots, as he was shooting Somewhere in Time but was enticed back. Both he and Kidder were outspoken in their disdain for the situation. This would lead to serious repercussions for Kidder. While Reeve was too big to replace, Kidder’s role as Lois Lane was virtually excised for Superman III, leaving her with only a small role in the second sequel.
Over a year had passed before Superman II was completed, leading to huge discrepancies in the finished film. Reeve was notably bulkier in the reshoots, having gained a significant amount of muscle, while Kidder was much thinner, having lost a significant amount of weight following the first film. Yet, even things like her makeup and hairstyle are inconsistent in the finished film.
Lester also, seemingly, had some contempt for the epic scope Donner gave Superman – the Movie, with him opting to shoot his footage with a different cinematographer, Robert Paynter, as the original DP Geoffrey Unsworth died following the release of the first film, in a more garish, comic-book style colour scheme. Lester also had a fondness for slapstick comedy, which is why the battle with the Kryptonian supervillains, played by Terrence Stamp, Sarah Douglas and Jack O’Holloran, is marred by dopey comic bits, such as one a man’s hairpiece is blown off his head, in a gag lifted from the Keystone Kops. Indeed, the tacked-on Lester humour was something many fans despised, such as a moment where a child falls off Niagra Falls, and when Superman swoops in to rescue him, you hear an old lady on the soundtrack cartoonishly say, “Oh, of course, he’s Jewish.”
While the film was a financial hit, the franchise quickly ran out of steam when Lester was allowed to lean even more heavily into comedy for the third film, while the Cannon-produced fourth film was somehow even worse.
Yet, it all has a semi-happy ending. When shooting Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer convinced Warner Bros to allow Richard Donner to finish Superman II in the way he intended. As such, Donner scrapped all of Lester’s footage, save for a few tiny bits, got his buddy Gene Hackman back to finish his dialogue, managed to secure the rights to reinstate all of Marlon Brando’s footage from the original shoot, and reinstated the score by John Williams. The resulting film was seen mainly as a triumph, even because over a quarter of a century had passed, it was never quite finished the way Donner intended and had some continuity issues. Donner hated the version of the scene where Lois proves Clark Kent is Superman that Lester shot, so he used footage from two Margot Kidder/ Christopher Reeve screen tests for his version of the film. The first Superman ends with Superman making the earth turn backwards in order to reverse time and save Lois Lane. This ending was intended for the second film, and a better ending was supposed to be written in time for the Superman II shoot. When Lester got his hands on it, he had the writers insert a moment where Superman somehow erases Lois Lane’s memory by kissing her, in a moment mocked by Tom Mankiewicz as “the kiss of forgetting.” Having no other option, Donner restored the “world moving backwards” ending, meaning both the first and second films end the same way. However, there’s a huge continuity issue, as in the movie, Clark is beaten up by a tough guy at a truck stop when he loses his powers. The film ends with Clark returning to the truck stop to get even with the bully, but if he turned the world backward and the events of the film never happened, then why would everyone in the truck stop still remember him?
However, even if the Richard Donner cut of Superman II isn’t perfect, we should be happy it exists at all. Certainly, as a fan of the series, it’s the only version of the film I watch, and the same is true for most fans. WB recently gave it a nice 4K restoration alongside all the other films.
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