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Superman II

Superman II is a 1980 superhero film directed by Richard Lester and written by Mario Puzo and David and Leslie Newman from a story by Puzo based on the DC Comics character Superman.[7][8][9] It is the second installment in the Superman film series and a sequel to Superman (1978). A direct continuation of the first Superman, Christopher Reeve reprises his role as Superman. The returning cast includes Gene Hackman, Terence Stamp, Ned Beatty, Sarah Douglas, Margot Kidder, Marc McClure and Jack O'Halloran.

For the 2006 reedited version, see Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut.

Superman II

Mario Puzo

John Victor-Smith

  • Dovemead Ltd.
  • International Film Production

  • December 4, 1980 (1980-12-04) (Australia)[3]
  • April 9, 1981 (1981-04-09) (United Kingdom)[4]
  • June 19, 1981 (1981-06-19) (United States)

127 minutes

United Kingdom[5]
United States[5]

English

$54 million[6]

$190.4 million[6]

The film's plot features the arrival of General Zod & his comrades on Earth, released from the prison of the Phantom Zone made by the people of Krypton. Zod seeks revenge by pursuing the planet's last son Kal-El, alias Superman. Kal-El, who unknowingly freed them, must now face the threats of his long dead home planet. Zod also aligns with the returning Lex Luthor who still desires world domination. The hero is also in conflict with his duties as Earth's hero and desire to live amongst them solely as Clark Kent, especially with his love interest, Lois Lane.


In 1977, it was decided by producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind that they would film both Superman and its sequel simultaneously, with principal photography beginning in March 1977 and ending in October 1978. Tensions rose between original director Richard Donner and the producers in which a decision was made to stop filming the sequel, of which 75 percent had already been completed, and finish the first film. Following the release of Superman in December 1978, Donner was controversially fired as director, and was replaced by Lester. Several members of the cast and crew declined to return in the wake of Donner's firing. To be officially credited as the director, Lester re-shot most of the film in which principal photography resumed in September 1979 and ended in March 1980.


The film was released in Australia and mainland Europe on December 4, 1980,[3] and in other countries throughout 1981. It received positive reviews from film critics who praised the performances of Hackman, Kidder, Stamp and Reeves, the visual effects, and the humor. It grossed $190 million against a production budget of $54 million, a box office success but less than its predecessor. A sequel, Superman III, was released in June 1983, for which Lester returned as director.


A director's cut of the film, restoring the original vision for the film under Donner's supervision, titled Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, was released on November 28, 2006 in various home media formats.

Plot[edit]

The following synopsis reflects the original theatrical version of the film.


Before the destruction of Krypton,[b] the criminals General Zod, Ursa and Non are sentenced to banishment into the Phantom Zone. Years later, the Phantom Zone is shattered near Earth by the shockwave of a hydrogen bomb, thrown from Earth by Superman. The three criminals are freed and find themselves with superpowers granted by the yellow light of the Sun. After landing on the Moon and effortlessly killing a team of astronauts exploring there, they continue toward Earth with plans to conquer the planet.


The Daily Planet sends journalist Clark Kent—whose secret identity is Superman—and his colleague Lois Lane to Niagara Falls. Lois suspects Clark and Superman are the same person after Clark is absent when Superman saves a child. Lois intentionally places herself in the falls, but Clark saves her without exposing himself. That night, Clark trips, and his hand lands in a lit fireplace. When Lois sees that his hand is unscathed, Clark reveals that he is indeed Superman. He takes her to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, showing her the traces of his past stored within energy crystals. Superman declares his love for Lois and his wish to spend his life with her. After conferring with the artificial intelligence of his mother Lara, Superman removes his superpowers by exposing himself to red Kryptonian sunlight in a crystal chamber, becoming a mortal. Clark and Lois spend the night together, then leave the Fortress and return from the Arctic.


Meanwhile, Zod and his cohorts travel to the White House and force the President of the United States to surrender. Clark and Lois arrive at a diner, where a trucker named Rocky sexually harasses Lois and beats up Clark. The fight is interrupted by a news report where the President resigns his office to Zod. When the President pleads for Superman to save the Earth, General Zod demands that Superman "kneel before Zod!" Realizing he has made a horrible mistake, Clark returns to the Fortress to see if he can regain his powers.


Lex Luthor escapes from prison with Eve Teschmacher's help. They infiltrate the Fortress of Solitude, and Luthor learns of Superman's connection to Jor-El and General Zod. He finds Zod at the White House and tells him Superman is the son of Jor-El, their jailer, and offers to lead him to Superman in exchange for control of Australia. The three Kryptonians ally with Luthor and go to the Daily Planet. Superman arrives, after restoring his powers, and battles the three. Zod realizes that Superman cares for the humans and takes advantage by threatening bystanders. Superman realizes the only way to stop Zod and the others is to lure them to the Fortress so he flies off with Zod, Ursa, and Non in pursuit, kidnapping Lois and taking along Luthor. Superman tries to get Luthor to lure the three into the crystal chamber to depower them. However, Luthor reveals the chamber's secret to the villains. Zod forces Superman into the chamber and activates it. Afterwards, assuming him deprived of his powers, Zod tells Superman to kneel and kiss his hand; instead, Superman crushes Zod's hand and tosses him into a crevice. Luthor deduces that Superman reconfigured the chamber to expose the trio to red sunlight while Superman was protected from it. Non falls into another crevice when trying to fly over it, and Lois knocks Ursa into a third. Superman flies back to civilization, returning Lois home and leaving Lex stranded in the Fortress.


At the Daily Planet the following day, Clark kisses Lois, using his abilities to wipe her mind of the knowledge of her past few days. Later, he returns to the diner and gets even with Rocky. Superman restores the damage done by Zod, replacing the American flag atop the White House, and tells the President he will not abandon his duty again.

as Lex Luthor: Criminal genius and Superman's archnemesis. Armed with vast resources and scientific brilliance, Luthor's contempt for mankind is only surpassed by his hatred for Superman. Luthor strikes a bargain with the three Kryptonian criminals in an effort to destroy Superman.[9]

Gene Hackman

as Clark Kent / Superman: Born on Krypton and raised on Earth, Superman is a being of immense strength, speed, and power. Morally upstanding and instilled with a strong sense of duty, Superman tirelessly uses his formidable powers, which he gets from the Earth's yellow Sun, to protect the people of his adoptive homeworld. His alter ego is mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Superman's abilities include: X-ray and heat vision, vast strength, speed and invulnerability, super-intelligence and flight.[9]

Christopher Reeve

as Otis: Luthor's incompetent henchman.

Ned Beatty

as Perry White: Mercurial editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet newspaper and Lois and Clark's boss.

Jackie Cooper

as Ursa: Zod's second-in-command and consort. Ursa's evil will and power-lust are equal to and sometimes surpass those of General Zod. Her contempt and utter disregard for humans, men in particular, make her a very deadly adversary. She has an inclination to collect insignia and heraldry from people she defeats or dominates, such as the NASA patch from the EVA suit of an astronaut she kills.

Sarah Douglas

as Lois Lane: The ace reporter for the Daily Planet and Superman's love interest. Lois is a driven career journalist, who lets nothing stand in the way of breaking the next big story and scooping rival reporters while ignoring the potential consequences that sometimes put her in peril. She finds out that Clark is Superman, but her memory is erased when Clark kisses her.

Margot Kidder

as Non: The third of the Kryptonian criminals, Non is "as without thought as he is without voice." At 7 ft (2.1 m) tall, Non is a formidable hulking mute who easily matches Superman's strength, but has the intelligence and sometimes curiosity of a child, and communicates only with guttural grunts and growls. Though he lacks the mental ability to use his powers effectively, he does however possess the same taste for destruction as his Kryptonian companions and his physical strength is even greater than Zod and Ursa's.

Jack O'Halloran

as Eve Teschmacher: Lex Luthor's beautiful assistant and girlfriend who helps him escape from prison.

Valerie Perrine

as Lara: Jor-El's wife and Superman's biological mother.

Susannah York

as Sheriff.

Clifton James

as the President of the United States.

E.G. Marshall

as Jimmy Olsen: Young photographer at the Daily Planet.

Marc McClure

as General Zod: The ruthless, arrogant and megalomaniacal leader of three Kryptonian criminals banished to the Phantom Zone and unwittingly set free by Superman. Zod, upon landing on Earth and gaining the same superpowers as Superman, immediately views humans as a weak and insignificant sub-species and imposes his evil will for world dominance. However, his arrogance causes him to quickly become bored with his powers and he is almost disappointed at how little of a challenge humans are. His insatiable lust for power is replaced however by revenge when he learns that the son of Jor-El stands in the way of his absolute rule of the planet.

Terence Stamp

According to the 2006 documentary You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman, Sarah Douglas was the only cast member to do extensive around-the-world press tours in support of the film and was one of the few actors who held a neutral point of view in the Donner–Lester controversy.


Richard Donner briefly appears in a "walking cameo" in the film. In the sequence where the de-powered Clark and Lois are seen approaching the truck-stop diner by car, Donner appears walking "camera left" past the driver's side. He is wearing a light tan jacket and appears to be smoking a pipe. In his commentary for Superman II, Ilya Salkind states that the inclusion of his cameo in that scene is proof that the Salkinds held no animosity towards Donner, because if there were, then surely they would have cut it out.[10] Conversely, Donner used his cameo to debunk praise heaped on Lester around the release of the film where Lester took credit for the intense nature of the "bully" scene in the diner, pointing out that he (Donner) filmed the scene and not Lester.[11]

Reception[edit]

Critical response[edit]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Superman II has an approval rating of 83% based on 58 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "The humor occasionally stumbles into slapstick territory, and the special effects are dated, but Superman II meets, if not exceeds, the standard set by its predecessor."[49] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[50]


Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the original film very high acclaim,[51] also praised Superman II, giving it four out of four stars. He wrote in his review, "This movie's most intriguing insight is that Superman's disguise as Clark Kent isn't a matter of looks as much as of mental attitude: Clark is disguised not by his glasses but by his ordinariness. Beneath his meek exterior, of course, is concealed a superhero. And, the movie subtly hints, isn't that the case with us all?"[52] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded three-and-a-half out of four stars[53] and declared it "better than the original."[54] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called it "the most interesting 'Superman' yet," adding, "This film's fun comes from character, dialogue and performance, not effects. There are, of course, enough effects to fill a dozen Saturday matinee serials but they aren't necessarily the film's deliciousness."[55]


Janet Maslin, reviewing for The New York Times, wrote that "Superman II is a marvelous toy. It's funny, it's full of tricks and it manages to be royally entertaining, which is really all it aims for." She also praised the performances of Reeve and Hackman and found the directing style between Donner and Lester to be indistinguishable.[56] Similarly, David Denby, reviewing for the New York magazine, praised the film's light approach and Hackman's performance.[57][58] Christopher John, reviewing the film in Ares Magazine, commented that "Superman II falls into the category of sequels containing such films as Jaws II – highly absorbing and entertaining, yet better films only if you never saw the original."[59]


British cinema magazine Total Film named Terence Stamp's version of General Zod No. 32 on their 'Top 50 Greatest Villains of All Time' list (beating out the No. 38 place of Lex Luthor) in 2007.[60] Pop culture website IGN placed General Zod at No. 30 on their list of the 'Top 50 Comic Book Villains' while commenting "Stamp is Zod" (emphasis in original).[61]

Box office[edit]

The film opened on 19 screens in Australia and grossed A$287,072 in its first four days.[62] On its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, Superman II broke box office records with a first day gross of $4.3 million.[63] The next day, it grossed $5.5 million, which at the time was the highest-single box office day, surpassing the record previously set by Star Wars (1977) with $4.5 million.[63] It also recorded the highest-grossing weekend up to that time with $14.1 million,[64][65] surpassing the record $11.9 million set by Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)[63] and the $13.1 million 4-day weekend set by Superman in its third weekend.[66]


The film remained number one for the next three weekends, outpacing Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Raiders eventually overtook it and returned to number one in its sixth week of release.[67] In its first month of release, Superman II had grossed $75 million,[67] and went on to gross $108.2 million in the United States and Canada (with the gross rental coming to $65 million), the third highest-grossing film of 1981.[68][69] Internationally, it grossed $82.2 million for a worldwide total of $190.4 million.[6]

Superman passes a jet on his way to Paris. This is not in the video release and was actually an outtake from Superman: The Movie as a bridge between Superman saving Air Force One and his conversation with Jor-El after his first night.

Concorde

At the end of the film, bumps into a large bald man, which reminds him to go to the diner to face the obnoxious trucker who beat him up earlier.

Clark Kent

The villains land outside the Fortress of Solitude with Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, trying to figure out how to get in.

Phantom Zone

Extended scenes of the three invasion of the White House, with Zod using a gun and Non frightening a dog.

Kryptonians'

Superman cooks a using his heat vision, during dinner with Lois at the Fortress of Solitude.

soufflé

Extended discussion between Zod and on the Moon.

Ursa

In East Houston, a boy tries to escape on horseback, only to be killed by Non, who throws a police siren at him.

Superman's publisher published a commemorative magazine of Superman II in 1981. Published as DC Special Series #25, it was produced in "Treasury format" and included photos and background photos, actor profiles, panel-to-scene comparisons, and pin-ups.[75][76]

DC Comics

In 2006, the Superman comics themselves adapted elements from the Superman movies, specifically the ice-like look of , and Jor-El banishing the criminals to the Phantom Zone. Ursa and Non made their first appearances in the comic book continuity. (This was facilitated in the "Last Son" story arc, co-written by Richard Donner.)[77]

Krypton

In 2021, a Superman comic entitled was released. Written by Robert Venditti and illustrated by Wilfredo Torres, the comic is set in Donnerverse continuity, acting as a continuation.

Superman '78

Official Warner Bros. Site

Official DC Comics Site

at IMDb

Superman II

at AllMovie

Superman II

at Rotten Tomatoes

Superman II

at Metacritic

Superman II

at the TCM Movie Database

Superman II

at Box Office Mojo

Superman II

Supermanii.com

The Superman Sourcebook, at The Thunder Child

Movie Reviews (Christopher Reeve Homepage) – Superman II

Superman Homepage: Superman II – Movie Synopsis/Review/Critique

The Superman Super Site – Superman II

II Times the Superman II: A close comparison of the Lester and Donner versions.