Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

[JasonPratt]

To be fair to Donner, he had to have shot Hackman's line, since Gene flatly refused to return for Lester's reshoots of that office material.

To continue being fair to Donner, as much as I don't like reducing Luthor to whatever-he-is in the movies, Hackman is pure gold pretty much whenever he's on the screen doing or saying anything. He even achieves the miracle of making this Luthor genuinely frightening (on occasion. Though mainly in the first movie.) His Luthor is the only part of Super4 I could stomach (and, I suppose, brief sparks of Reeve's genius at playing Superman playing Clark Kent.) And I hated most of his scenes in Super4! That's sheer talent. 

[mirth]

The thing I prefer about Lester's version of the Daily Planet scene is Reeve's line "General, would you care to step outside". That's not the line in the Donner cut and Lester's version is better imo - funnier, more clever.

You are correct, everything with Hackman was shot by Donner. Hackman was not pleased by how Donner was treated and he flat out refused to do any reshooting (I think he vowed to never do another Superman film, but they must have thrown enough money at him for Supe IV).  However, since about 80% of the film had been shoot when Lester was brought in, it was fairly easy to work around.

[JasonPratt]

True; I just wanted to give Donner credit on something related to that little exchange, since I'd been badmouthing The Donner Cut a lot.  O0

Regardless of what I think of the portions of Donner's film that were changed for theatrical!Super2 (i.e. the changes are almost all for the better), he deserves massive credit for shepherding so much of the first two films that work.

[mirth]

This pretty much how I would rank the Superman films

http://collider.com/best-superman-movies-ranked-from-worst-to-best/#superman-1

[mirth]

Richard Donner on making Superman

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/superman-inside-story-director-richard-879894