In 2004, three years after the all-too-brief resurgence created by the Superman : The Movie Special Edition and its abandoned worldwide cinematic re-release, the prospect of any unseen footage emerging from the sequels still seemed laughably unlikely –
Though major plans by Warner Bros. were in fact already underway to collate all the footage for the four movies to present the Ultimate Collection on DVD, (and, Indeed, the ambitious Richard Donner Cut) there was still a firm belief across the fan community that most, if not all footage, from Superman IV especially, was forever lost.
And then, out of nowhere, the efforts of a SuperFan (as ever) paved the way to enforce the belief that anything is possible. In this short archive ‘Making Of’ video (top) captured and restored by Alex Serpa, more from the production of Superman IV was revealed in four minutes that had been for 20 years previously. From the opening storyboard to the on-set footage of the Nuclearman II battle at Elstree Studios, (filmed on December 10th 1986) the footage is sweetened even further by the insights of Christopher Reeve.
Showing the confrontation and first revelation of dialogue between Superman and Nuclearman I, the brief action was more than enough to restore faith that somehow, somewhere, one day the deleted scenes would be found…
Rare stills above from the set to correspond with the scenes shown in the video courtesy of Alexei Lambley-Steel and Matt Derby. Many thanks to Alex Serpa for the use of his awesome video!