>>SATURDAY 25th FEBRUARY

NO MORE SUGGESTIONS

Please do not send any more suggestions to Warners Home Video Dept. Please don't bother with petitions. Please be patient. I have it on good authority that they are swamped with suggestions -- they know what you want and they'll do everything possible to meet your high expectations. There's been an unprecedented response to the studio regarding this set. Thanks to Jim Bowers for taking the lead and organising your wish lists which have been sent to the right people.

You can read the suggestions here. Thanks to Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits.

GOOD VIBES

Folks, I've been hearing good things from people who might or might not be involved with these DVDs. Let me tell you that a lot of features have not been set in stone yet. Anything is *still* possible.

>>WEDNESDAY 22nd FEBRUARY

A REVEALING WARNER BROS. CHAT

The news Superman IV fans have been waiting for 19 years, or 9 if you only found out about the deleted material from this site -- The deleted scenes will be featured as a supplement. So, I think it's fairly safe to assume that we will get virtually everything we want on these discs pending footage and cast and crew availability.

I always maintained that the S4 cut footage was destroyed, infact, someone who was in the Superman IV editing room told me that they were ordered to destroy what they were working on. Thankfully, someone had the foresight to save the footage...Phew!

Other bits:
Superman The Movie (original and extended) and Superman 2 will be released separately.
Superman Returns will be part of the rest (marketing move to shift Superman 3 and 4)
Supergirl is not part of the set.

MORE LATER

I've been writing editorials for the site, which I will publish very soon -- I want to talk about where I stand now with regards to the films. Giving my final thoughts on topics which still cause intense debate.

>>SATURDAY 18th FEBRUARY

THE DIGITAL BITS COMPILING A WISH LIST/HTF CHAT

Bill Hunt is requesting fans to email them their DVD wishlist. I'm assuming this will be past onto Warner Home Video. You want Superman IV 2 hour cut? Of course you do! You'd better get to the BITS and tell them. Click Here. There will be a Warner Bros. HTF chat on Tuesday, details here, another opportunity to ask questions.

SUPERMAN DVD SPECS

I can confirm that the original cut of SUPERMAN with the original audio track will be on the DVD set. Apparently, Ilya Salkind requested it. I've set-up a page listing confirmed and unconfirmed specifications of the DVD set. I don't know if RETURNS will be part of the set.

>>TUESDAY 7th FEBRUARY

ILYA FINALLY SPEAKS...

...on subjects which needed addressing at the Superman Homepage. Here are couple of tasters:

Salkind acknowledges that Mankiewicz "did some great, great stuff", but suggests that the interviews on the 2001 DVD may have failed to recognize the contributions made by the film's other writers. "If you compare [earlier scripts] to the Mankiewicz script, frankly, it's surprising how little changes there were to the dialogue. Things have to be said true the way they are. I had forgotten myself and re-read the Newman script. [A]ll that stuff [on Krypton] was the same, the entire Lex Luthor thing. Tom did some great, great stuff but there was a lot of great stuff [already]."

"The whole 'pink' [Lois interviewing Superman on her balcony] and all that - that's all [the Newmans]. We tested with that and Tom wasn't working yet," noted Salkind. "We had agreed that Tom could come to work on the project [by the time we started screen tests] but the script was pretty solid."

Read the scripts, they are on the site in document form. Puzo and Newmans deserve a lot of credit.

The sequel lost one more participant from the original - conductor John Williams whose original score was adapted for "Superman II" by Ken Thorne. Salkind recalled that Williams was set to return until an unfortunate happenstance. "John Williams came to London, we paid [for] the trip. He saw the [second] film. I made a mistake. I let him alone with Lester in the screening room and somehow Lester and him did not hit it off at all. At the end of the screening, John said 'Ilya can I speak to you?' He said 'Look I cannot work with this man.' That was it."

Maybe Lester went in the screening shirtless...

Click Here to read the complete interview.

>>FRIDAY 3rd FEBRUARY

NO EXTENDED SUPERMAN IV

Warner Bros. told me today that they currently have no plans to present a longer cut of Superman IV. I heard to the contray but I didn't believe it, glad I didn't. UPDATE: Plans have yet to be finalised on the final contents of the boxset so it's still a possibilty.

>>THURSDAY 2nd FEBRUARY

DONNER ON 16 BLOCKS AND SUPERMAN II

A terrific Donner interview at Dark Horizons.

No that was a Richard Lester cut and all my stuff was laying in the vaults and there was a young editor named Michael Thau who came to me one day and said "Listen if you go on the internet everybody wants to see your version of II" and I said "I don't think it exists, there were cans," we were doing one and two at the same time. And we had to stop doing two to deliver one on time, so we did everything with Brando anyway, everything we remembered, so he called and said the studio gave me the go. Now they've reprinted all the material, they've shipped all the negatives from England and he's recutting my picture and again, he's asked me would I help. I can't because it's so long ago and the little bit of footage that I looked at, I would never shoot like that now in a million years, I mean it was a different way, a different style, different interpretation.

SUPERMAN II: THE DONNER CUT; CHILL

With the Superman 2 announcement came elation and trepidation; I've noticed some quarters already bitching when they have no idea what Michael Thau is doing. He wants to make everyone happy, but lets keep the constructive comments flowing and halt the destructive, personal comments to one side. "It's going to suck, they are using the screen test yada yada". If the footage isn't available then what can you do? Do the best you can with the material you got. Thankfully, a good portion of the material was stored at Pinewood and it's just a case of printing it and incorporating it into a cut, which, let's be honest is not representative of a Donner cut but something closer to his original vision. The Donner cut is probably not the correct title for this project.

So, just calm down folks, there's a lot of information yet to be made available in an official capacity.