Wonderful behind the scenes stories from Superman II, told by Jack O'Halloran

https://www.datalounge.com/thread/28838402-wonderful-behind-the-scenes-stories-from-superman-ii-told-by-jack-o-halloran

It’s a debate that has divided Superman fans for 40 years and counting: was the Man of Steel a murderer before he snapped General Zod’s neck in Zack Snyder’s hotly debated 2013 blockbuster Man of Steel? For evidence of his killing ways, viewers frequently cite the final moments of Superman II, which premiered in U.S. theaters on June 19, 1981 and became that year’s third-highest-grossing movie.

In the theatrical version of the sequel to Richard Donner’s 1978 comic book classic, Christoper Reeve’s Last Son of Krypton, Kal-El, faces off against the galaxy’s only other surviving Kryptonians — aspiring despot Zod (Terrence Stamp), his accomplice Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and the strong, silent Non (Jack O’Halloran) — in the first superhero vs. supervillain brawl to ever grace the big screen. After alternately dishing out and taking punishment, Superman tricks the trio into losing their yellow sun-given powers, and then stands by while they plunge into the deep ice crevices in his arctic Fortress of Solitude.

Case closed, right? Not quite: as Jack O’Halloran tells Yahoo Entertainment, Donner filmed an extra scene that confirmed all three villains survived and were carted off to a terrestrial prison instead of the Phantom Zone. “We shot an ending where they bring us out and put us in a police car and take us off to jail,” the actor and former heavyweight boxer says now, exonerating Superman of his supposed crime.

But that consequential story beat was cut from both the theatrical version — which was completed by Richard Lester after Donner departed the film under acrimonious circumstances — as well as Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, the 2006 version of the movie that reconstituted his original vision. Fortunately, Zod, Ursa and Non’s survival is canonized via a deleted scene that’s included among the DVD bonus features, and viewable on YouTube. The three villains are glimpsed being escorted to an “Arctic Patrol” police car, as Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor tries to talk his way out of a return trip to jail.

O’Halloran, for one, regrets that some viewers have spent 40 years believing that Superman killed his fellow Kryptonians, and takes a pointed dig at Man of Steel for further perpetuating that impression. “The beauty of Superman and Superman II is the fact that Superman wasn’t flying around killing villains,” he argues. “He was putting them in jail — there was an American way of law and order about it. That’s what’s wrong with the movies they did afterwards: they got darker and darker and darker. Those first two films still stand up all these years later, you know?”

According to O’Halloran, Donner had other reasons for wanting Zod and his cronies to survive besides the “law and order” of it all. When he was first hired by producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind to bring Superman to the big screen in a giant back-to-back production, the director supposedly envisioned a grand epic that would have spanned multiple movies. “He wanted to do 10 of them,” O’Halloran claims. “It would have been a whole different franchise.”

And somewhere along the way, Stamp, Douglas and O’Halloran would have returned to go another round with Reeve. “We were supposed to come back, because they carted us off to jail,” the actor notes, blaming Lester for blocking off that particular story avenue. “That was the way Lester wanted to end it. The Salkinds owed him a movie, and it was cheaper for them to let him do Superman III rather than Donner. That was a bad mistake.” (The Lester-directed Superman III flew into theaters in 1983, and was immediately met with lukewarm reviews and mediocre box office.)