10 Director's Cuts That Changed Your Mind About Bad Movies
7. Superman II
Superman II had an infamously roughshod production, with original director Richard Donner being fired from the movie after 75% of it had been shot and replaced with journeyman filmmaker Richard Lester.
Lester ended up re-shooting most of the film in order to receive a director's credit, and though his Superman II has received broadly positive write-ups over the years, it's undeniable that it falls incredibly short of Donner's work on the original Superman.
Lester has an irritating penchant for goofy comedy opposed to the more earnest, straight-faced tone of the first film, and only in 2006 were audiences able to see an approximation of Donner's vision when he was allowed to assemble The Richard Donner Cut.
In addition to stripping away most of Lester's campy excesses, this new version of Superman II included heaps of Donner's unused footage, even including some of Marlo Brando as Jor-El.
Though the Donner Cut isn't as glossy as Lester's version, it feels far more consistent with the tone of its predecessor and is far closer to what Donner was trying to achieve before Warner Bros. inexplicably shut him down.