Years ago a guy who edited several of Sidney J. Furie's movies emailed me, and said he had asked him specifically about a "Director's Cut" of SUPERMAN IV when they were working together. Basically the deal is that the movie was never finished (as you can obviously tell by the special effects in the final version!) and that it would be impossible to ever reconstruct it since it was never presented in a version that could even be shown to the public (I'm not even sure they bothered with test screenings on it; Warner rushed it out when they realized it wasn't worth saving).I doubt it will ever happen, but I keep hearing about "The real Superman IV" "The Un-edited, Director's Cut Superman IV" etc. I'd sure like to see that one time, just for academic purposes, even though IV as is left me permanently traumatized.
SUPERMAN III is a movie with a bad rep but it really is pretty entertaining if you meet it on its own terms. Even Ken Thorne's score has some nice moments -- plus you have that great Supes Vs. Clark angle, Annette O'Toole (I enjoyed the romance between her and Reeve), and a couple of funny set pieces. And Richard Pryor...well he's OK, but he doesn't wreck the movie.
People forget how much money III made and that it WASN'T nearly as badly received as memory suggests. Obviously compared to I and II it was a disappointment at the time, but really, what else were they going to do? They made a Richard Lester movie that was a lot "lighter," but heck, I'd take it any day over most of the deadly-serious, brooding hero movies we get now.
SUPERMAN IV....is awful, has been and will be. I never understand people who think it's on the same level as III. One has quality production values and some good sequences, the other is a total loss!
