The Donner Party/Lots Of Sequel Talk

The website IGN recently posted an interview with director Richard Donner--conducted by Jeff Otto. The conversation reveals that Donner isn't involved in putting together the recently announced "Director's cut" of Superman II that I talked about last Friday.

Here's the exchange:

Donner: They're doing it {a Director's Cut of Supes II}. I'm not doing it. They're doing it. Michael Thau, who used to be my assistant and is a good little editor - [said that] there were so many requests to Warner Brothers to see my cut that he went to them and they authorized it. He's been working for about four or five months now getting all the negatives and cuts out of England. A lot of it's been destroyed, a lot of it wasn't kept. But everything that he was able to [get], he said it will probably be about 70 percent my footage.

Q: So the rest will be footage Lester shot?

Donner: Yeah. I don't even want to see it until it comes out.

Q: But you do want to see it?

Donner: Oh, s**t yeah! But I don't want to cut it. I mean, I'm too far away from it now.

I'm a bit disappointed that Donner chose not to be directly involved in the edit of the new cut of the film. Considering how he was treated by the producers...But I am happy that he supports the project and that he can't wait to see it. Neither can I Dick, Neither can I...

Meanwhile, Dark Horizons has a status report on several key sequels, that are on tap from "The Dream Factory". The stuff about the Batman Begins sequel is the most interesting of all the talk going on right now.