(And if you don't know anything, please, please, please don't post to say you don't!)

Aleady discussed in another thread...

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5303& amp;PN=1&TPN=1

These two pages are all that were posted 

April 4, 2005: Superman II: Restored International Cut

This project began as a fan edit. The hope was to recut the film to make it feel more like Donner's "Superman The Movie." Before work could seriously begin, the extended TV broadcasts needed to be acquired to include some of those great Donner moments that didn't make it into the theatrical cut.

There would always be those hard-core fans that would want to see everything. So with the support of fans and friends from around the globe, the fan edit was put aside, and the business of restoring the entire film began. It took about 2 years to acquire the footage, and make it watchable, but the results were less than satisfying. The word once again went out for extended broadcasts, and both Bill Williams and Jonathan Hoyle answered the call. The choice wasn't easy, but after a lot of scrutiny, Bill's footage was the actual source chosen to improve RIC. But special thanks to Jonathan for sending his original master as well.

It's been said many times, this film will never win any quality awards. The footage supplied came from home recordings. So anyone expecting amazing detail and clarity will be sorely disappointed. But if you've seen any version of the extended broadcasts, you'll probably appreciate the way it's presented here. Great care has been taken to make the film as watchable as possible, no commercials, no subtitles, no station ID's. Thanks to the generous help of a very talented individual, even the audio got a polishing as well.

The final two disc RIC DVD set contains:

• The complete two hour, twenty-six minute version of the film.
• On-screen commentary track, detailing what footage Donner shot, and other RIC trivia.
• Long out of print documentary "The Making of Superman II."
• Long out of print "Superman II Soundtrack."
• "Lost Scene Gallery" featuring pictures of Donner's unreleased work on Superman II.
• "Restoration Demonstration" showing before and after footage examples.
• Complete RIC artwork folder. All the artwork, from the cover to the disc art, it's all included in TIFF file format.

"Restored International Cut" is strictly non-profit. It's become a worldwide effort created by the fans, for the fans. If you would like to contribute to the project, please help spread the word about the real "Superman II." With enough fan support, maybe Warner Brothers, or even the Salkinds themselves will someday make available the lost work of Richard Donner, Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, Geoffrey Unsworth, and many many others. If you get your hands on a copy of RIC, please share it with others.

RIC's artwork and DVD menus were generously donated by the immensely talented George

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/print.php?type=N&item_id =666

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/index1.htm

Looks like it's been shut down.  I would have really liked to have seen the scene with Superman and Lois.  But I'm sure that there will still be copies floating around at cons.

WO

To Mr. Byrne and everybody else. I have a few things that I want to share with you, this is probably a lot of old stuff that you know already, but there might be some new facts and views:

In a mag (from the US) I read when Christopher Reeve was still OK, I mean before the tragic accident, there was an interview with Margot Kidder, where she said in short: 

The movie company did suddenly not want to pay Richard Donner for his work, then they put Richard Lester as the director: Of course, Richard Donner was the director, and the film was completed, but according to US law the director is not the director if his time of footage directed is less than 65 percent of the film.

According to Kidder, the easiest way to "change" directors would be to let 65 perecent be directed by Richard Lester and since it was already filmed 100 percent by Richard Donner as the director, they decided to reshoot the easiest scenes, which happened to be the scenes with "Chris" (as she called him) and her.

To save money, and to not step on Richard Donner's toes, they had to rewrite the scenes completely. The scene where Kidder through herself into the Niagara river, was a new version of a scene by Donner, where in a similar manner, Lois in order to prove that Clark is Superman, throws herself out of the Daily Planet building. The interviewer found this to be a wonderful scene.

All the scenes in Canada had their equivalent Donner version in Metropolis, according to Kidder. When asked, where this footage was, she said that it was in a vault somewhere, and it could not be released, because then Donner will have to get paid since it will exceed the 65 percent limit.

The versions on TV, therefore, do not (my conclusion)

• exceed the 65% limit
• include the vault footage

With vault footage I do not mean added scenes, they are probably added in several TV versions, but the scenes that should be there instead of the footage shot in Canada. There is a big diference there.

Another strange thing: When I was a kid, in our Superman book (Sweden), some guy got published, had sneaked into the studio and read the entire Superman script and he wrote down the entire film in short. This was probably bogus I thought at first, it was in 1976, and I actually read it, it was very short but it exactly resembled Superman I and Superman II connected in the way that the bomb at the end of the first movie "became" the bomb bginning the second movie, releasing the phanotom zone villains. Superman did not turn back time, he instead threw the bomb into space.

There had to be some thruth to this, since the synopsis or whatever matches the two movies. I have also heard that they were filmed at once according to Gene Hackman. In an interview Hackman was approached with "this is you third time in a Superman movie" right after Superman IV and he said "no, it's my second time, the other movies were filmed at once".

Edited for spelling and in order to more directly reply to Mr. Byrne's question or thoughts, I want to add that if the DVD or VHS cover there doesn't show Lois throwing herself from the Daily Planet building I am not interested in this "Donner version" of the film.

Matt Hawes wrote: I bet we'll se copies of this DVD at the big conventions this summer.

No doubt, although I'm sure you'll have to pay dearly for it, which is against the original idea of it being a non-profit item available to everybody.

Richard Donner noted on the commentary to the DVD release of "Superman: The Movie" that he had shot more than 60% of "Superman II" during the same period he shot the first film, as I recall.

For fun, watch "Superman II" and notice how Lois's hair changes length during the course of the film.

Also, any footage with Gene Hackman clearly shown as playing Lex Luthor (not long shots, for instance) was filmed by Donner.