341 EXT. NIAGARA FALLS - DAY

Establishing shot of Niagara Falls.

A few seconds worth of establishing shots from Richard Lester's shoot can be used here.




342 - 351 - AS SHOT BY DONNER

- Niagara Falls Interiors

Example (Lester footage):


- Fortress of Solitude Exteriors



- Fortress of Solitude Interiors



352-354 SCENES OMITTED

- Niagara Falls Exteriors.

Budgetary restrictions prevented Richard Donner from filming this section of the Niagara Falls sequence during the location shoot of 1977.

When the sequence was remounted in 1979 by Richard Lester, the production team reverted to the 1976 David and Leslie Newman version of the scene, which was slightly different to the scene Donner intended to film.

The set-up was essentially the same, but in Tom Mankiewicz’s version of the scene, Superman rescues a boy and his dog, who get caught in the current, and are taken over Niagara Falls in a dinghy. Rather than the boy who slips off the railings into the Falls, as seen in the released version of the film.

We’ll look at two possible ways they could re-edit the scene to make it more Donneresque.

The first version is a straightforward abridgement of Richard Lester's scene, as follows:

Start with Clark asking Lois to hold his hand.



They could possibly remove the section where Lois takes off Clark's glasses, and Clark warns the boy (as this is a bit of a retread of the earlier Daily Planet scene, where Lois notices the similarities between Clark and Superman), and cut to Lois holding the camera up to her eye, and spotting the hot dog stand.





Then cut back to Lois and Clark, as she takes the photo.



Cut the shot before Lois says the "An orange juice. Freshly squeezed" bit, as this will make no sense, since Lester's earlier Daily Planet scene will have been removed.



Cut to the wide shot of Clark walking towards the hot dog stand.



Continue with the scene as filmed, but remove the "Of course he's Jewish!" line.



End the scene after Lois says "And Clark is not around - as usual! Hmmm..."



PUSHING THE BOAT OUT - DONNER'S SCENE RECREATED:

With a small amount of new live-action footage of the boy in the boat (with a child actor made up to resemble the original boy, Hadley Kay), and some additional model and digital effects, it should be possible to re-edit this scene so that it closely resembles the scene from the 1977 script.



Establishing shot.



Cut to Clark looking into the Falls, and asking Lois to hold his hand.



Cut Lois taking off Clark's glasses, and Clark warning the boy.

Insert a new live-action shot. A close-up of a boy asleep in a rowing boat on the river. The current starts to pull the boat along.




Cut to Lois holding the camera up to her eye, and spotting the hot dog stand.




Then cut back to Lois and Clark, as she takes the photo.



Cut before Lois says the "An orange juice. Freshly squeezed" line.



Cut to the wide shot of Clark walking toward the hot dog stand.



The boat heads towards the edge of the Falls. The boy wakes, and desperately tries to paddle the boat against the current, to no avail.

New model footage composited into the existing Niagara Falls footage, along with some new close-up live-action footage of the boy.



Lois looks through her camera viewfinder.



(Naturally, all of the original shots of the kid messing about on the railings at this point would be removed from this version of the scene.)



The boat goes over the Falls.

New model effects shots, combined with new live-action footage, and existing Lester Zoptic footage.







Lois sees what has happened. She takes the camera from her eye.

“Oh, my God!”



Lois and the others scream for help.



Clark looks back.


The boy tumbles towards the bottom of Niagara Falls, the boat falling away beneath him. New or existing shot, with the boat added in.



Superman shoots down into the Falls. The background plate of Niagara Falls would have to be flipped for this shot.


Superman catches the boy in the nick of time.


Insert a new Model shot of the rowing boat crashing to the bottom of the Falls.



Superman flies up with the boy. Again, the background plate of the Falls would have to be flipped for this shot.




Remove the silly stuff, like "Of course he's Jewish!"


Superman deposits the boy on dry land, and flies off.

Remove the shot of the boy being told off.

Cut to the shot of Lois waving after Superman.

As before, end with Lois saying "And Clark is not around - as usual! Hmmm..."


They could perhaps take this scene one stage further, by adding the dog into the scene, and rotoscoping Superman and the boy landing into a new background, to appear that they've landed in another part of the Falls, as in the 1977 Tom Mankiewicz version of the script.

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