A “new” version of Superman II coming this fall
July 22, 2006Now this is something I hadn’t heard–back in the late 70’s apparently Richard Donner was supposed to direct both Superman and Superman II. In fact, he was shooting Superman II but then parted from the film due to “creative differences”. Well now in something that seems quite unprecedented, Warner Brothers plans to release the Donner version of Superman II this fall.
On the one hand it sounds exciting–I’d love to see what kind of vision Donner had for that film. Not that the theatrical version we’ve all seen is bad, it’s actually pretty good and I certainly enjoyed it.
But the thing that gives me pause is that this sounds like a cynical George-Lucas-style attempt to squeeze more money from the fans by releasing a different version of the movie. Just like Lucas is finally delivering DVD’s of the Star Wars trilogy this fall in their original theatrical cuts, now Warner Brothers is releasing an entirely different vision for Superman II.
Still, I’m probably going to be in line at the store, wallet in hand, to pick up the new Superman II. Especially since there may not be any more Superman movies for a while–apparently Warners will not greenlight a Superman Returns sequal unless it grosses over $200 million domestically. And that’s going to be a struggle, they released it too close to Disney’s Pirates of the Carribbean and are being slaughtered at the box office as a result. It’s barely past $170 million in domestic gross, and given all the other new movies coming out the rest of this summer its hard to see how they get to $200 million.