Favorite Richard Donner

[Neverending]

Gotta go with Lethal Weapon.

:grin:

[FilmJerk]

LW4

[cg124]

Superman it's a great movie and was the first great comic book movie

[Philm]

I say Goonies because of Sloth and Chunk. Sloth has a face only a mother can love.

[Rizor]

SUPERMAN! Followed by The Goonies, Superman II, Lethal Weapon and Maverick.

[Neverending]

Superman is an awesome film, one of my favorites, but there's something about Lethal Weapon that I enjoy above all Donner films. Perhaps it's Mel Gibson's crazy performance.

Murtaugh: Have you ever met anybody you didn't kill?
Riggs: Well, I haven't killed you yet.
Murtaugh: Don't do me any favors!

[jbailey84]

Goonies!

"Hey you guys!"

[Neverending]

The reason why Goonies 2 is a bad idea is because if Donner and Spielberg make fun of little fat kids again there's gonna be stupid people protesting and s--t. Boy don't we all miss the `80s!

[OzzMosiz]

Superman II could've been so much better. It was the best concept of all 4 films, but there was too much filler scenes (especially with Lex), and Otis and Lex were made to look ridiculous (too much humour).

[Neverending]

FROM: Cinescape.com (http://cinescape.com)

Director Richard Donner describes what his version would have been.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dateline: Friday, April 14, 2000

By: EDWARD GROSS


`Let me put it to you this way,` laughs Richard Donner, `all the good parts are mine. Everything with Hackman, Brando—well, they cut Brando out because he wanted more money—Beatty and Perrine was shot by me.` Donner, of course, is talking about his footage for Superman II, which he shot simultaneously with that for Superman: The Movie, before Richard Lester replaced him as director of the sequel.
`It`s been a long time,` says Donner of his intentions for that film, `but I remember that it was going to be more in the tradition of the first one. The villains were going to be much more believable. I hated that stuff they did with the villains in the small town. It looked like an Englishman`s point of view of what America would look like, with the army, the jeeps, the people.... There was no sense of size to it. It lost its sense of importance.`

As fans are aware, Superman II focuses dually on the romantic relationship between Superman (Christopher Reeve) and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), who discovers the truth about Clark Kent, and three villains from Krypton who come to Earth and essentially attempt to take over—aided somewhat by Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman). Donner recalls several significant differences between what was shot by him and what ended up in the film under Lester`s direction.

`My Superman II opens at the Daily Planet on the front page of a newspaper, `Superman Saves So and So.` Lois is looking at the newspaper and her byline, and there is a photo of Superman in the newspaper, arms folded across his chest, in his typical pose. She`s all elated as she`s reading her byline, and then on the other side of the office, talking to Jimmy Olsen, is Clark Kent, sitting there with his arms folded in exactly the same pose. She looks at the newspaper, then at Clark and says, `Oh my God.` She takes a pen and starts drawing, but we don`t know what she`s drawing. We cut back and we see that she`s drawn a hat on Superman, a jacket and tie and glasses, and it`s Clark Kent. Just then, Perry White calls Clark and Lois into his office and says, `I`m sending the two of you on a honeymoon scam at Niagara Falls. You`re going to pose as a married couple.` Perry leaves, and she goes over to Clark, gives him a nudge and says, `That`ll be terrific, Clark. We can fly up there,` and she gives him the eye. He doesn`t know what she`s talking about. Then she says, `You`re Superman, aren`t you?` And he tells her that that`s ridiculous. So she gives him the newspaper, which he looks at and recognizes as himself. Then she says, `Before you say anything, I`ll bet my life that you`re Superman.` He lowers the newspaper and sees that she`s moved to an open window and onto the ledge, thirty floors up. Then she jumps out the window, and in a millennium of a second everyone freezes; he shoots through the office, because he can`t change, downstairs as a blur, with every loose piece of paper being caught behind him. He appears as a blur on the street. There`s an awning, and he uses his vision to pop it out. Then he blows up as she`s coming down, causing her to kind of float like a leaf. She hits the awning, rolls off of it and onto a fruit stand, which we established in front of the building. Then he`s back upstairs in this second, looks down and calls out after her, `Lois, are you alright? What did you do?` She looks up at him and faints dead away. This was shot, but they chose to do that stupid opening scene with the terrorists in the Eiffel Tower.`

Donner continues, `Another change took place at Niagara Falls. Superman saves the kid, and that night in the hotel room Clark`s talking to Lois, who says, `It`s amazing that Superman showed up the way he did to save that kid.` `Yes it is, isn`t it?` `I think it`s too much of a coincidence, don`t you?` `I don`t know. What do you mean by that?` `I think you`re really Superman.` `Oh, Lois, isn`t that silly`—you know, typical Clark. `We went through this before, and you almost killed yourself. Thank God you hit that awning. You jeopardized your own life.` Lois says, `This time, Clark, I`m going to jeopardize yours.` She reaches into a drawer and pulls out a gun. She says, `Clark, I believe that you`re Superman so much, that I`m going to take that chance.` `Lois, put that gun down....Lois, it could be loaded.` She pulls the trigger; we hear the gun go off, and he stands there. Clark stands up to his full height, takes his glasses off; his chest is practically ripping through the jacket, and his voice goes from Clark Kent`s to Superman`s. `Lois Lane, don`t you realize what a stupid thing you just did? If I had not been Superman, you would have just killed Clark Kent.` And she says, `What? With a blank?` He falls down in his seat and moans, `Oh my God,` looking like he`s about to throw up. And that`s how she found out he was Superman. It`s really sickening, because all of that was shot and they just cut it out.`

Tom Mankiewicz relates a lost scene between Superman and his father, Jor-El (Marlon Brando), which was to take place after Kal-El has been stripped of his powers, beaten to a pulp—barely able to make it back to the Fortress.

`We had a scene where Jor-El basically commits suicide,` says Mankiewicz. `Jor-El touches his son and rejuvenates him and `kills` himself by expelling the last of his energy. That scene was as chilling as anything you`ll ever see on the screen. It was shot with Brando and was wonderful, but because they [the Salkinds] would have had to pay him money, Superman says, `Mother, mother` as opposed to `Father, father,` which is what he should have done and did do in the script. Brando appeared and said, `Even though this will extinguish what is left of my life—I warned you, I told you....` And he reached out through the void. Clark is unconscious on the ground, and it`s essentially God touching the hand of Adam. It`s a motif I had done at the beginning when Brando sent Chris to Earth and said, `I send them my only son.` It was God sending Christ to Earth. Brando was just wonderful.`

Mankiewicz finds one of the most humorous aspects of the entire situation to have come from New York magazine`s David Denby. Mankiewicz recalls that, after viewing Superman II, Denby wrote, `You can tell the difference between Dick Donner and Richard Lester in terms of sophistication. Because in Superman II, Gene Hackman really had something to do; he`s really wonderful, arch and so on, as opposed to his performance in the first one. Well,` smiles Mankiewicz, `I wrote a letter to David Denby and said, `Just for your information—and this is not to denigrate Richard Lester, who`s a very nice man and a good director—every foot of film of Gene Hackman was shot by Dick Donner and written by me. So much for your being able to tell the difference between Richard Lester and Dick Donner.` They never printed the letter.`

[Sculder]

Lethal Weapon althou I like Maverick a lot too

[rosncranz]

radioflyer, brilliant movie!

[italianstallion]

didnt richard donner do gremlins? if he did, than thats my favorite movie of his!

[Boods]

LEATHAL WEAPON 4 ... cos it has an amazing cast