Imagine if Hackman had the same contract as Brando-

[crazy_asian_man]

If so...
Can you imagine rewriting LEX out of SII to avoid paying Hackman a percentage as well?--- and then handing it over to Lester?

Weirdly, I could imagine the story 'working'..... especially as Lester (unfortunately imo) decided to make the criminals and the citizens of Houston as the 'comic relief' anyhow. (Not to mention the metro battle- ugh!)

Storywise- this might have been doable-

* You'd lose the Lex/Fos bit- but was it completely needed?
* You'd have to have the villains discover the DP and - if wanted- if Valerie Perrine agred to it.... you could have had Lex stay in prison and had her 'take over' Lex's plot (with the idea that she was much sharper than Lex and that she had her own agenda)... then had her take the villains to the DP, through 'clever' editing...

- and then Lester would have really shot most of the film- and actually 'earned' (sorta) the full director's credit. (in theory).

I hate to admit it, but if Hackman had the same contract and the Salkind didn't want to pay Hackman points as well- then.... storywise, I hate to admit rewriting Hackman's Lex could have still worked- though it would have meant losing a ton of Donner material- and imo made it really seem like SIII, outside of some key Donner scenes that would have still existed.

Thoughts?

[crown]

Reshooting the Luther scenes with just Valerie Perine and Ned Beatty seems like the best bet. Ms Teschmacher would break Otis out of prison while fake Luther would be left behind (hey ever hear of parachutes!). Teschmacher and Otis would visit the fortress and then just Teschmacher would show up at the White House to try to get the villains to do her bidding (maybe she would have recovered the kryptonite necklace as her ace in the hole). What about if the producers had decided to cut Margot Kidder from the movie since she said bad things about the Salkinds? They could have brought in Annette oToole as Lana Lang to replace the Lois. The opening scene could have been re-written to have Mr White saying “Kent I need to you to go undercover to expose the honeymoon racket in Niagara Falls and since Lois is in Paris meet Lana Lang Smallvilles newest gift to Metropolis!”

[crazy_asian_man]

Jun 10, 2023 19:36:34 GMT -5 crown said:

Reshooting the Luther scenes with just Valerie Perine and Ned Beatty seems like the best bet. Ms Teschmacher would break Otis out of prison while fake Luther would be left behind (hey ever hear of parachutes!). Teschmacher and Otis would visit the fortress and then just Teschmacher would show up at the White House to try to get the villains to do her bidding (maybe she would have recovered the kryptonite necklace as her ace in the hole). What about if the producers had decided to cut Margot Kidder from the movie since she said bad things about the Salkinds? They could have brought in Annette oToole as Lana Lang to replace the Lois. The opening scene could have been re-written to have Mr White saying “Kent I need to you to go undercover to expose the honeymoon racket in Niagara Falls and since Lois is in Paris meet Lana Lang Smallvilles newest gift to Metropolis!”

I think it's a fun mental exercise to go through and re-imagine it.... the fortress was already rebuilt, so Lester could have just reshot it in the same tv style like the rest. Teschmacher and Otis are a possibility, but Ned Beatty had (if I recall right) either won or was nominated for an Oscar prior to STM--- so it's also possible that a rewrite would have had a cheaper actor/new character for Teschmacher to bounce lines off of rather than Beatty.

In listing the Lex scenes that would have had to have been replaced or omitted:

#1: The jail laundry room talks about the plot- but that could have been done with Teschmacher finding written plans by Lex or whatnot and had her find that box that he had worked on in his old HQ (though to cheap it up, only a section rebuilt of course)

#2: The jailbreak scene wouldn't be necessary if. Teschmacher had a new assistant of her own if she wanted to be the 'lead villain'.

#3: The journey to FOS- was already going to be reshot in long shots with extras, so that was already money going to be spent.

#4: The set with the FOS was already being rebuilt, so having Teschmacher & an assistant filling in to talking to the council wouldn't be that big a deal cost=wise.

#5: Rebuilding the white house room would be an expense, but perhaps not that big, with Teschmacher talking to the villains.

#6: The DP attack - considering how so much of it was broken down into different angles, I could see reshot (they were doing reshoots anyways)- with Teschmacher filling in for Lex.

#7: Similarly, the last scene with Lex is in the FOS- and, since they reshot much of it with the Hackman double- it wouldn't cost that much to just do that with Perrine also.

The main loss (outside of being shot cheap-looking under Lester) would be those great comic moments between Hackman and the villains.... it certainly would have been different with Perrine and the villains, but it actually might not have been that bad a change- (except for my feeling that most of Lester's gags have been extremely unfunny based on his SII and SIII additions.)

From a story point of view, though, I think it could have worked.

[dejan]

That's an interesting idea in terms of substituting Lex with Tesmacher.

But it may have altered the "threat" dynamic.
Lex had viable reasons for helping the villains after Supes stuffed his San Andreas fault plan.

OTOH, Tesmacher had already saved Supes in STM.
In the deleted scene(and rightly so).....Supes saved Tesmacher from the lions.

So having her then be the arbiter/negociator/middlewoman with the villians would not make much narrative sense.

Lets not forget that Supes went to all the trouble of saving Tesmacher's mum in New Jersey.

So she probably loves the guy!
She really has very little reason to screw with Supes......unlike Lex.

So if Tesmacher was to be retconned in some version of SII......changes would have had to be made to STM to make it viable.
But that was not neccessary!

[crazy_asian_man]

Jun 11, 2023 11:39:10 GMT -5 dejan said:

That's an interesting idea in terms of substituting Lex with Tesmacher.

But it may have altered the "threat" dynamic.
Lex had viable reasons for helping the villains after Supes stuffed his San Andreas fault plan.

OTOH, Tesmacher had already saved Supes in STM.
In the deleted scene(and rightly so).....Supes saved Tesmacher from the lions.

So having her then be the arbiter/negociator/middlewoman with the villians would not make much narrative sense.

Lets not forget that Supes went to all the trouble of saving Tesmacher's mum in New Jersey.

So she probably loves the guy!
She really has very little reason to screw with Supes......unlike Lex.

So if Tesmacher was to be retconned in some version of SII......changes would have had to be made to STM to make it viable.
But that was not neccessary!

Glad that they didn't go this route.... but is fun to speculate and put the puzzle pieces together, no?

Another way would have been just to recast both Brando (which I would have been fine with) and Hackman if, indeed, Hackman had the same contract and the producers wouldn't have wanted their footage cut out.

That being the case, in one of these other multiverses- it would have been interesting to see if Donner would have shot it (in this other alt universe he would agree presumably) - or another equally capable director with the same aesthetics.

Given all, I am suprised that -in Brando's case- why they didn't just recast and insert the shots, given how little he was in the film anyways. Even under Lester.

[dejan]

@cam 

As a side note regarding Hackman's inability(desired or not) for the completion of SII:

In Petrou's book, Lester says that he turned Hackman down for Petulia in 1968, favouring the formidable George C Scott to play against Julie Christie, instead.

So was wondering if there were some bad feelings between the 2 on the production set during STM because of that artistic rejection from 10 years prior?

To be fair , Hackman did do the press junket at Niagra Falls and the premiere in New York City for SII in 1981, so maybe they buried the hatchet(if there was a hatchet) by the time of the theatrical release.


As for recasting Brando.....hmmm.....IMHO(of course!),I actually prefer it the way it was given the conditions.....but of course I would have loved it if they could have used the already shot Donner stuff for the theatrical.

Or how about this for a scenario:

Donner is fired as happened......

But Brando buries the hatchet , the Salkinds pay him his royalties  and is available for reshoots and extra footage under Lester!

How would that have altered the dynamic of completing SII?

Lester had never directed Brando before.
And as such, by the time Lester was hired in his unofficial role as producer.....Brando had already left STM.
In other words they would have been unfamiliar with each other.

So that would have been an interesting working dynamic.
But given Brando's gravitas....would that have induced Lester to go the extra yard(i.e expand the villains taking over the world  ....no ice cream in the face ect ect).

[crazy_asian_man]

Jun 11, 2023 13:45:56 GMT -5 dejan said:

@cam 

As a side note regarding Hackman's inability(desired or not) for the completion of SII:

In Petrou's book, Lester says that he turned Hackman down for Petulia in 1968, favouring the formidable George C Scott to play against Julie Christie, instead.

So was wondering if there were some bad feelings between the 2 on the production set during STM because of that artistic rejection from 10 years prior?

To be fair , Hackman did do the press junket at Niagra Falls and the premiere in New York City for SII in 1981, so maybe they buried the hatchet(if there was a hatchet) by the time of the theatrical release.


As for recasting Brando.....hmmm.....IMHO(of course!),I actually prefer it the way it was given the conditions.....but of course I would have loved it if they could have used the already shot Donner stuff for the theatrical.

Or how about this for a scenario:

Donner is fired as happened......

But Brando buries the hatchet , the Salkinds pay him his royalties  and is available for reshoots and extra footage under Lester!

How would that have altered the dynamic of completing SII?

Lester had never directed Brando before.
And as such, by the time Lester was hired in his unofficial role as producer.....Brando had already left STM.
In other words they would have been unfamiliar with each other.

So that would have been an interesting working dynamic.
But given Brando's gravitas....would that have induced Lester to go the extra yard(i.e expand the villains taking over the world  ....no ice cream in the face ect ect).

Yes.
If Brando and Lester had gotten together for SII:

Brando: "I want to be a bagel and make weird sounds so I can just stay in my trailer and eat more cream puffs."

Lester: "I love it! How about some fart gags and a pie in the face, as I think this Superman legend is a complete joke and Donner was an idiot to treat it with respect?"

Brando: "Can I stay in my trailer?"

Lester: "Yes. And I'd like to put a rat toupee on top of the bagel."

Brando: "You're my best director."

Kidding aside.... Brando's presence in STM and the laid out plan for STM-SII didn't really sway Lester from trying to bend it all towards being a "Mad mad World"--- so I doubt it would have made any difference.

If Ilya had told him he wanted things more serious, I think he would have listened, though, as wasn't Lester's career in the toilet at that point? And Reeve was mesmerized by Lester's reputation so he was willing to trust Lester completely, it seems. (Though, he had slightly stern words in an interview on SIII regarding its production on the press tour.)

[dejan]

Points taken dear CAM!

A couple of tough scenarios or what I would call Infinity War like choices!:

1)
Donner is allowed to finish SII in 1979 but is without Brando and even Hackman!
Uses Yorke to refilm the Brando scenes, including a repowering scene where Lara touches Clark's shoulder just like Jorel did in Mank's original script.

2)Donner is fired, Lester comes in, Brando(but not Hackman) is allowed to come back and reshoot some extra footage where required,aswell as use some of the already shot footage(Brando stuff,White House,Lunar attack,Lex escape,Don's Diner,Fortress stuff ect ect) as completed by the now departed Donner.

3)Donner is fired,Lester comes in, but Brando and Hackman are allowed to come back but this time Lester cannot use anything that Donner shot when filming back to back with STM.
In other words, Lester has to do the Lunar attack,Lex's escape,the White House stuff, Don's Diner....now called Les's Diner!, everything in the fortress aswell as shoot entirely new scenes with Brando and Hackman..... from scratch. 

Of the 3 options I would be most intrigued with number 3, but would probably err to number 2, although IMHO,Lester got a better performance from York than Donner originally did with Brando, for the reshoots.
But if Donner could get Yorke to also do a better job than Brando......may be I would go with option 1!

I am assuming you would not want to see a "total" Lester SII!
But that would leave you with an interesting conundrum:

......would you rather see a partial Donner/Lester SII with Brando(and Hackman stuff from the original shoot)?.......or a complete Donner SII......without Brando(and Hackman stuff from the original shoot)?!


I would say having gone through pretty much most of Lester's stuff(that now includes the rare but much sought after Royal Flash)......that I have no doubts that he could have replicated the lunar and White House stuff , beat for beat, shot for shot, that Donner had already layed down, if neccessary.

Lester could do violence and tension in equal measure.

So Lester would have no problems crushing some poor soul in a Lunar module......or some poor astronaut getting his balls kicked into outer space.

[crazy_asian_man]

Jun 11, 2023 16:27:12 GMT -5 dejan said:

Points taken dear CAM!
...

I would say having gone through pretty much most of Lester's stuff(that now includes the rare but much sought after Royal Flash)......that I have no doubts that he could have replicated the lunar and White House stuff , beat for beat, shot for shot, that Donner had already layed down, if neccessary.

I'm glad we can peacefully disagree.

Long story short, we have completely different views on Lester and Donner, from the ground up and that's totally cool.

On the other hand, I've always said Lester made an excellent Three Musketeers film.