The following events took place on Friday, July 20, between 9:00 AM and 2:30 PM.

One of my goals with my reports on this year’s San Diego Comic Con is to persuade my fellow Quick Stop columnist Frugal Fred Hembeck that it is about time he made the trek out there. To be sure, there is a certain degree of difficulty involved in this expedition, as Friday morning demonstrated.

FRIDAY 9:00 AM
As you may recall, I was splitting a room at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort with three other attendees at the Comic Arts Conference. Patrick Jagoda, who organized our group of four, suggested that I pay my quarter of the bill directly to the hotel this morning. So we went down to the front desk and I asked the woman on duty to divide the cost of five nights by four. This simple mathematical task proved to be a severe strain of her mental faculties. She eventually accomplished this imposing feat, but said that it would take her another twenty minutes to prepare a receipt. (Why it would take so long in this age of computers I do not know.)

I decided it would be wiser to stick around to make sure she didn’t screw up, and let Patrick and the others take the 9:30 AM water shuttle over to the Con. But what could I do to pass the time for twenty minutes? Exploring the hotel lobby, I came across a dazzling all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. It was wonderful until I got the bill: twenty dollars for breakfast!? Well, I ended up taking some of the food with me, so I could count some of it as lunch.

Then I returned to the front desk, where the same woman told me that she miscalculated the tax and that I owed her five more dollars. I would subsequently learn that she had overcharged me.

Between the hassles of finding a hotel and straightening out the bill and eating overpriced breakfasts and all the other annoyances, just how am I ever going to convince contented recluses like Fred Hembeck that it’s worth all the trouble to come here?

FRIDAY 10:00 AM
So I got aboard the 10:00 AM water taxi, and this morning the water was quite choppy, which turned out to be its usual state.

During this morning’s voyage I learned that two of my fellow passengers were Lolita Ritmanis and Michael McCuiston, composers for Justice League Unlimited and other Warners animated series that adapt DC Comics. A comics fan was eagerly chatting with them and asked what the next DC animated series would be. They told him it was Legion of Super Heroes, which premieres this fall. The fan said he’d never heard of the Legion. So I intervened and explained the Legion to him, while adding generation gap shock to my sticker shock over the cost of breakfast.

The water taxi landed at the San Diego Marriott, and, seeing Ritmanis and McCuiston take a short cut to the Convention Center, I followed their example. I headed towards the humongous Hall H, which holds 6500 seats and is infamous for the long lines waiting to enter. But this morning I just walked right in, to attend Hall H’s first panel of the day, “Warner Bros. Pictures Presents.”

FRIDAY 11:00 AM
But first an unidentified man on stage asked the assembling crowd how many were here at Comic-Con for the first time; a surprisingly large number applauded, but a much larger number were repeat visitors.

Then Gary Sassaman, the Comic-Con’s Director of Programming, walked out on stage. I’ve corresponded with him in the past, and he seemed an affable fellow. So I was surprised that his onstage demeanor is grim if not gritty.

In a somber tone of voice, he told us, “Happy to look out over you all and your semi-smiling faces.” Not even semi-smiling, Sassaman added, “We’re thrilled to have you here.”

Sassaman also made reference to what he called the “campers”: people who would remain in Hall H all day. This is a viable option: there are restrooms, and there is even a table in the Hall H lobby that sells food and drink. In years past I have sometimes attended a panel I wasn’t interested in in order to ensure I had a seat for the blockbuster panel that followed it in the same room. So I understand the campers’ strategy: they make sure they will see all the day’s Hall H events without having to wait in the legendary lines more than once.

Since Hall H is the venue for panels promoting movies, even if many of them are based on comics, the presence of the campers is a sign of how Comic-Con is no longer just about comics. The campers will not venture onto the main convention floor all day; they’ll never see the comics companies’ booths. For the campers, this is the San Diego Movie Con.

With the entrance onstage by publicist Jeff Walker, the Warner Brothers presentation commenced.

First up was a short panel promoting the horror movie The Reaping, including Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank, child actress Anna Sophia Robb, director Stephen Hopkins, and producer Joel Silver.

I found this segment most notable for offering the first example I saw at this year’s Comic-Con of the Fan Who Lacks a Sense of Reality. A questioner from the audience asked Hilary Swank if she would do a Supergirl TV show. “That’s very specific,” responded Ms. Swank diplomatically. Swank said that she would do television if it was a good project, and ended, “Let me think about Supergirl” I doubt that she thought about it for a second more.

The Reaping representatives were succeeded on stage by playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute, a bespectacled, bearded, paunchy figure who looked as if he could easily blend in with the Comic-Con crowd. LaBute was there to promote his remake of the cult classic horror film The Wicker Man. “I was a fan of The Wicker Man when I was young,” LaBute told us, but he described the remake “as reimagined by myself” and others. “Reimagining,” of course, is a euphemism for freely changing anything one wants from the original material. For example, LaBute explained that whereas in the original the cult was headed by a patriarch played by Christopher Lee, in the new version he is replaced by a matriarch portrayed by Ellen Burstyn. LaBute maintained that the remake “keeps the spirit of the original.” Then moments later he told us that whereas the original opposed Christianity against paganism, his version was about “male” versus “female,” a theme “from my own work.”

Indeed, LaBute is well known for his plays and films depicting male misogyny. As to why he changed the patriarchy in the first Wicker Man into a matriarchy, he told us, “I guess I’m more scared of women than of men, but I’ve tried to keep the psychology of it at bay.” Now there’s a revealing statement. Perhaps he should look into his psyche a bit more.

Weeks later, in the August 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly, LaBute said, “But I come from theater and I see new productions of my plays all over the place, So the idea of taking somebody’s movie and saying, ‘I’m going to take this in a new direction’ doesn’t seem sacrilegious to me.” I should point out that when a stage director does a new production of a play, he doesn’t rewrite it.

Next came a video clip on Hall H’s enormous screens, and there was a long pause before the audience broke into loud applause. You see, they didn’t recognize Harry Potter–or, rather, actor Daniel Radcliffe–at first without Harry’s glasses. (So you see, the old Clark Kent disguise really does work.) Radcliffe was soon joined by David Yates, the director of the next film in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which they discussed in the clio. To my mind this short video was disappointing, because Radcliffe and Yates were too low key: they were fulfilling their task of performing in this promo professionally enough, but didn’t seem genuinely interested enough in it. In contrast, I recall how Peter Jackson so successfully reached out and bonded with the Comic-Con audience through his prerecorded video message during last year’s King Kong presentation (see “Comics in Context” #99).

One good bit was Yates’ description of the next film’s sadistic Professor Umbridge as “a genetic splice between Doris Day and Freddy Krueger.”

Following the video Jeff Walker told us, “I promise someday we’ll get all three of them,” by which I assume he meant bringing the actors who play Harry, Hermione and Ron to the San Diego Con.

Then Walker introduced what he called “unused footage from Superman Returns.” It turned out to be a blooper reel, whose high point was a scene in which James Marsden, as Richard White, was questioning Kate Bosworth, as his girlfriend Lois Lane, about her relationship with Superman. Marsden bombarded Bosworth with a barrage of risque inquiries that were not in the script, such as whether she and Superman had become members of the Mile High Club. (I didn’t like Marsden in the X-Men movies, but I like him now.)

Then Superman Returns’ director Bryan Singer, in baseball cap and sweatshirt, walked onstage to big applause. He doffed his cap and someone shouted, “I love you, Bryan!” Singer almost immediately started taking questions from the audience.

The first inquiry was about Lois’s son Jason in the movie, who is clearly Superman’s. Singer explained that Jason’s upbringing is meant to “parallel” Superman’s. Superman is “the last son of Krypton” who was “raised by humans.” Jason is Superman’s son, and is being raised by “human parents,” Lois and Richard. But, “unlike Superman,” Singer said, Jason has “genetic material” from both an alien and a human.

Singer revealed that he himself was adopted, and that it was important to him that “Richard White must be a good guy” and Lois must be “a good woman.” He also said that the situation of being half alien and half human reminded him of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

Why is it that so often fans who are brave (or exhibitionistic) enough to ask questions of celebrities at cons say such dumb things? The next fan to ask a question claimed that he had seen Superman Returns twice and that there were “slight cuts” the second time. Singer replied that this was “impossible” but that “I would love to do slightly different versions” in order to “get more people to see the film.”

Next came a woman who objected to Superman “fathering an illegitimate child” in Singer’s film. There was some applause, approving her charge. Singer joked, “You just lost all of Middle America.” Then he turned serious and stated that “love in the modern world takes many forms” and that there are “different kinds of families.” This received big applause from the audience, far greater than Singer’s accuser had gotten.

Discussing scenes he had deleted from the film, Singer revealed that he had finished a $10 million scene in which “Superman actually returns to Krypton,” or, rather, to what’s left of it. Singer said it “didn’t fit into the picture,” but that it should be seen on a theater screen. “It might be underwhelming on DVD,” he said. So, Singer continued, he “wants to save the Krypton scene for something else,” by which he presumably meant another film, though he added “I may change my mind.”

Will he do a sequel to Superman Returns? “I haven’t concluded a deal to do it yet,” he told us. However, “my intention is to do it for 2009.” His first Superman film “reintroduces the characters and universe,” he explained. “The next one enables me to get all Wrath of Khan on it,” referring to the second Star Trek movie.

Then Singer said he wanted to introduce a “friend” “without whom I wouldn’t be here.” And surprise guest Richard Donner, the director of the original 1978 Superman movie, walked onstage to huge applause. Singer and Donner (who was wearing a Superman cap) embraced.

And then the questions from the audience resumed. The next fan was pleased that, as he put it, Skeletor was Perry White in Superman Returns. Singer explained that “my best friend is Gary Goddard,” who directed the movie He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, in which Frank Langella played the villain Skeletor. So that is indeed the reason why Singer cast Langella in Superman Returns!

Singer was also the director of the first two X-Men movies. So the next questioner asked if Singer would come back “to repair the damage” done to the X-Men films. Singer responded, “I have to see who’s left in the cast,” getting applause. “I love the actors and the X-Men universe,” Singer told us, adding that he devoted “six years of my life” to the X-Men.

“Have you ever had a better producer?” teased Donner, referring to his wife Lauren Shuler-Donner, who produced all three X-Men films.

Returning to the question of whether he’d go back to X-Men films, Singer summed up, “It’s entirely possible. I never know.”

In responding to another question, Singer took the opportunity to salute his fellow director. Singer said that in doing Superman Returns “I decided to return to Richard Donner’s vision” from the first film. “If Richard Donner hadn’t done that movie, there wouldn’t be superhero movies.” Singer said there would just be “bad TV” about superheroes. Donner’s film, he continued, “enabled Smallville and Lois and Clark to take it [the Superman mythos] seriously.” Singer declared, “Dick’s film is the ultimate classic.”

Then Donner addressed the subject of Superman II. Donner originally shot Superman and Superman II simultaneously, but, as Donner told us, they “postponed the rest of II” in order to finish the first film. Then, Donner continued, due to the “inimitable good taste of the producer,” they “decided not to bring me back to finish II.”

Instead, Richard Lester was assigned to complete Superman II, and Lester threw out much of the footage that Donner had already shot. As longtime readers of this column know, in recent years fans have attempted to reassemble Donner’s version of Superman II from footage included in various extended versions of the film, but much of Donner’s material remained inaccessible (see “Comics in Context” #90). But it appears that fan demand finally convinced Warner Brothers to reconstruct the Donner version of Superman II, and it will be released on DVD on November 28.

Donner recalled that he got a phone call from a man named Michael Thau who told him that people on the Internet wanted “to see my version of II. I said, “I’d love to see my version of II.’” So Warner Brothers hired Thau to produce and edit the reconstruction of Donner’s version of the film.

Donner said that “a lot of it had disappeared” and that “a pivotal scene in II was never filmed.” However, Donner had used the script for this scene in the screen tests for both Christopher Reeve (as Superman/Clark) and Margot Kidder (as Lois). Donner said that at the time of his screen test, Reeve was “thirty pounds lighter” and had “honey-brown hair,” and that three months later he put on additional weight for the role. So Thau had to use footage from the screen tests was used to reconstruct this scene, “but it works,” Donner promised us.

Then we were shown a lengthy scene from the Donner version of Superman II, set at The Daily Planet, in which Lois doodles glasses on a photograph of Superman, suspects that Clark Kent is the Man of Steel, and employs an extreme stratagem to prove it: jumping out a window to force Clark to use his powers to save her. I will tell you no more about what happens. But, despite the way I have described it, it is actually a brilliant comedy sequence. It fits into the 1960s comics tradition of Clark/Superman making snoopy Lois look foolish to safeguard his secret identity, but Donner and his collaborators made the scene funny rather than nasty. And what a pleasure it is to see newly revealed footage of Christopher Reeve’s amusingly befuddled portrayal of Clark Kent!

After this clip, Donner graciously turned the audience’s attention back to Singer. Donner declared that in Superman Returns Singer had presented Superman “as pure and honest” for 2006. Donner told us that Singer “deserves a standing ovation,” and the audience complied.

An audience member asked Singer about the Biblical references in Superman Returns. Singer stated that “the Judeo-Christian allegory began” in Donner’s Superman. “I’m a Jewish kid, who grew up in a Catholic neighborhood,” Singer said, adding he was “interested in mythology and religion.” Singer declared that superhero comics were “20th century mythology” and that “people will look back in one hundred years” to superheroes like Superman “the way we do with King Arthur.”

The next questioner asked what Singer “had in mind for X-Men 3.” Singer was hesitant about answering: “I shouldn’t.” He did reveal that “I wrote a third of a treatment” for the third film, that “certain things were similar” to what we saw in the actual X3, that Phoenix would have appeared in his version, but that there “was a different villain from the X-Men universe.” Singer added that “I am writing the Ultimate X-Men [comics] series” for Marvel.

Singer also talked about how he believes Superman Returns is in part what he calls a “chick flick” with a love story. Singer noted that if you “look back at the whole seventy-year history of Superman, “ “he’s been in love with Lois Lane” for that entire time. Singer said that he had never done a “love story” before, saying that his X-Men movies were “not wholly” love stories. Intriguingly, Singer then brought up the Cyclops/Jean Grey/Wolverine triangle in his X-Men movies and said they were almost “the same characters” as those involved in Superman Returns’ romantic triangle. Singer stated that in Superman Returns he wanted to make a movie that not just women but “romantics” could appreciate.

A fan asked why Singer showed the teenage Clark wearing glasses. Here singer had another intriguing reply. His theory was that “as a boy he [Clark] needed them,” that he “grew up as an awkward kid who had problems with his vision” because Clark’s “Kryptonian genetics” had difficulty adjusting to Earth’s “yellow sun.” In a sequence that Singer cut out of the film, the young Clark realizes he no longer needs his glasses when he first utilizes his X-ray vision. Singer drew a parallel between the young Clark’s vision problems and Jason’s asthma. Jason’s breathing problems likewise result from his Kryptonian genes’ difficulty adapting to Earth’s environment. Singer said that “the parallel moment” to Clark’s realizing he no longer needs glasses comes in the boat when Jason decides he no longer needs his breathing apparatus.

Returning to his earlier Wrath of Khan reference, Singer explained that he meant that his next Superman movie could be more action-oriented since the audience was now “emotionally invested in the characters.” Unconsciously echoing a speaker at the Comic Arts conference, Singer stated that an “action-adventure film doesn’t work unless you care” about the characters. Donner literally applauded Singer’s statement, and Singer added that he “learned this from X-Men 1.”

FRIDAY 12:30 PM
Exiting Hall H I went up an escalator to the second floor, on my way to Room 20 for the next panel on my list.

Walking along the corridor I passed by a crowd who had surrounded two actors from Comedy Central’s police comedy series Reno 911!, both in full uniform. What they were doing there I do not know, but one should not be surprised at anything at Comic-Con.

Maybe they should have been out directing traffic. When I arrived in Room 20, the panel promoting the movie Hood of Horrors, was still going on, minus its star, Snoop Dogg (whose very name is an allusion to comics), who was stuck in traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego. The eventual solution was to have Mr. Dogg address the audience via cellphone. Hearing the reaction of the nearly 4500 people in Room 20, he said, “Damn, it sounds like the Chicago Symphony!” Mr. Dogg also described his predicament for our benefit: “This traffic is a m*th*rf*ck*r!” (A reminder: Comic-Con is not primarily for kids.)

FRIDAY 1:00 PM
Then Room 20’s next panel began: “Warner Home Video’s Superman through the Ages.” It opened by showing on the hall’s video screens a superb montage of clips from the 1950s television series The Adventures of Superman, the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s, Lois and Clark, the 1990s Superman animated series, and Smallville. For example, Gene Hackman introducing himself on screen as Lex Luthor from the end of Richard Donner’s Superman was followed by a shot of Smallville’s Luthor which was followed in turn by the animated Luthor. This was a promotional video for Warner Home Video, which sells DVDs of all these versions, including this fall’s Superman: The Christopher Reeve Collection. We were informed that the “central focus of the panel” would be “Superman II: The RIchard Donner Cut.”

But first we were introduced to a number of guests who represented Superman’s various onscreen incarnations. The first was introduced as “the First Lady of Metropolis”: Noel Neill, who, we were reminded by the emcee, was the “screen’s first flesh-and-blood Lois Lane.” Lois had been portrayed on radio and in animation earlier, but Neill played Lois opposite Kirk Alyn’s Superman in two movie serials before going on to costar opposite George Reeves’ Superman on television. We were shown a video montage of some of her past work in Superman projects, including her cameo in Donner’s Superman. Referring to the leads in her past Superman appearances (apparently including Christopher Reeve), Neill joked to us that “I finally realized I’m the Superman Curse. All three of them have died.” According to The New York Times’s interview with her (July 13, 2006) Ms. Neill is now eighty-five years old, but on the Room 20 stage she looked great and had a wonderful smile.

Next came Sam Huntington, who played Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns. “I’m an uber-fan,” he told us. (Now here’s a word I find preferable to fanboy, nerd and geek.) “I would be sitting in the audience if I wasn’t sitting here.”

Representing the first two Superman movies were their Jimmy Olsen, actor Marc McClure, and Jack O’Halloran, who portrayed Non, one of the Phantom Zone villains.

O’Halloran spoke about working with Marlon Brando, who played Jor-El for Donner: when Brando was there, he said, “When you walked on the set you could hear a pin drop.” Brando relied on cue cards, which O’Halloran said were “everywhere”: “There were cue cards up his nose.” Brando’s explanation was that he didn’t want it to come across on camera that he knew what he was going to say before he said it.

McClure and Huntington had only first met that day. They sat side by side on the panel and appeared to be the same height, which seemed appropriate for the two Jimmy Olsens.

McClure reminisced that he was only twenty when he appeared in the first Superman. “I was a kid in a candy shop having fun,” but from watching the more serious Reeve “I realized how important it was to Chris to get it right.” McClure then spoke about how important stem cell research was to Reeve and urged us to support it.

Then Michael Thau, the producer and editor of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, addressed the audience, declaring that “This project came together because of you guys.” Thau continued, “The recut of Superman II is a milestone in cinema history, the first time a filmmaker after twenty years could reconstruct a vision that was taken away from him.”

I think of the case of Orson Welles’s 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons. RKO studio executives took the film away from his control, ordered the film’s editor Robert Wise to cut it down severely, and even had Wise shoot an entirely different ending. The deleted footage has never been found and is presumed to have been destroyed. It is said that decades later Welles dreamed of reuniting surviving members of the cast to shoot a new ending, but was never able to do so. Superman II is not as great a film, but it too is a classic, and has found a happier fate.

Thau told us that the restored Donner version contains “more than fifteen minutes” of previously unshown work by “one of cinema’s greatest actors, Marlon Brando.” He stated that this version “contains more than eighty percent” of Richard Donner footage, that it follows Tom Mankiewicz’s screenplay more, and that the restored version is “more in tune” with Donner’s first Superman movie.

Then Thau presented “for the first time the correct opening of Superman II,” which he called “the bridge that connects” the first and second films. On Room 20’s video screens this restored sequence began with a new addition: “This picture is dedicated to Christopher Reeve.” This opening consists of a montage of clips which recap the first Superman, leading to the point at which Superman diverts Luthor’s nuclear missile away from the New Jersey home of Miss Teschmacher’s mom. The missile instead detonates in outer space, releasing General Zod and his two cohorts from the Phantom Zone. “Free!” shouts Zod, and as he and his accomplices fly towards Earth and the moon, the words “A Richard Donner Film” appear onscreen.

At this most appropriate moment, Richard Donner came onstage, in his second surprise appearance of the day.

Asked to dispel the top two or three misconceptions about his Superman, Donner asked, “Have you got a week?” Donner explained that he had “finished everything for II” with Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman and “went back to finish I.” Donner fully intended to finish shooting Superman II. “If Superman had been a failure, they’d have made me come back. But since it was a success, they fired me.”

Donner seconded McClure’s advocacy of stem cell research. “If we got into stem cell research earlier,” Donner asserted, “Chris would be here today.”

A fan from the audience told Noel Neill, “You’re absolutely beautiful!” And it’s true, she is! She gives me reason to raise my expectations for women of my own generation as we grow older.

On the subject of the new Superman movie, Donner told the audience that “when Warners tried to relaunch Superman, they never called me.” Donner noted that Warners had gone through various actors and directors for the project, but that with Bryan Singer they “got the right guy.” Donner told us he likes the love story in Superman Returns and the child.

“You have no idea how proud I am about the fans,” Donner then told us. He said that Thau had told him that the restoration of his version of Superman II came about “because of all you people and your e-mails.” He concluded, “I thank you all.”

Then an audience member asked how Donner got to do the first Superman. “I was sitting on the john one Sunday morning and the telephone rang,” Donner said. This was in 1976, and Donner heard “a little Hungarian voice” on the phone, who identified himself as Alexander Salkind. Donner said he had never heard of Salkind. Then Salkind offered him the job of directing the Superman movie and said, “I’ll pay you a million dollars.” “Yeah! Sure!” Donner enthusiastically replied.

The next fan in the question line told Donner, “Superman is my favorite movie of all time.” Donner replied, “You have great taste.”

THe next question was about the twenty percent of the new Superman II cut that Donner did not shoot. Donner said that when he was finishing the first Superman, “I didn’t like the ending, so I stole the ending of II.” He reported that he and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz had “discussed how to end II,” but that it was Michael Thau who “came up with the end it should have.”

The next question was what the panelists’ best moment on their Superman projects were.

Noel Neill wittily remarked, “I’ll say one thing for us, it wasn’t payday.”

When Donner’s turn came, he reminisced how the first Superman had premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and then in London. Then he and others took the Concorde to fly back to the United States. Halfway over the Atlantic Ocean the plane’s captain said that there was what Donner termed “a little bit of trouble” with the engines, so the Concorde would have to drop out of the stratosphere and fly like a normal plane. The captain added, “But don’t worry because Superman is in seat 1A.” Donner added that “The best thing” is “meeting Chris, loving him, and missing him.”

Just as the panel closed, Donner interjected that he and Geoff Johns were collaborating on a Superman comic book that would debut in October. I suspect that this is the project involving Brainiac to which Donner had mysteriously alluded during the Singer panel.

The panel ended with another showing of the Clark and Lois Superman II segment I’d already seen at the Singer panel. But I was happy to watch it a second time, and I look forward to seeing it again this fall on DVD.

Now here’s a reason why Fred Hembeck, the number one fan of the 1950s Superman TV show, should have gone to the San Diego Con. He, too, could have been in the same room as Noel Neill! Aah, he’s probably waiting to see if his dream double date Hayley Mills ever turns up at Comic-Con.

Copyright 2006 Peter Sanderson

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