Unlike many "special edition" and "director's cuts" released over the years, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is a very different film, despite both versions following roughly the same storyline. As much as half of the film contains never-before seen material filmed by Donner, including 15 minutes of Marlon Brando scenes as Superman's father Jor-El as well as numerous new Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder scenes. Some of this "new" material has appeared in earlier extended television cuts. Some of the existing scenes were also replaced with alternate takes or footage from different camera angles. There are also several newly-filmed shots and many new visual effects. Richard Donner is credited as director of the film instead of Richard Lester. More than half of Lester's footage filmed for Superman II has been removed from the film and replaced with Donner footage shot during the original principal photography from 1977. Certain footage filmed by Richard Lester remains in sequences that were not shot by Donner (due to the halt in production for this film) for purposes of story cohesion. As a result, approximately 83% of the footage in the film is Donner's footage.
Following the release of Superman in December 1978, it was widely assumed that Donner would be recalled to complete the remainder of the sequel. However, a number of events led to Donner's eventual replacement as director of the movie. Most importantly, the producers (Alexander and Ilya Salkind) announced that Marlon Brando's completed scenes for Superman II would be excised from the movie in order for them to avoid having to pay the actor the reported 11.75%[2] of gross U.S. box-office takings he was now demanding for his performance in the sequel. Donner publicly lambasted this decision, announcing that he would make the film his way or not at all. The April 1978 issue of the sci-fi magazine Starburst quotes Donner as saying, "That means no games...They have to want me to do it. It has to be on my terms and I don't mean financially. I mean control."
One of the early changes made for the final Lester cut was the elimination of any scenes involving Marlon Brando, even going so far as to re-shoot the scene where Jor-El takes the green crystal and laying into the starship, as millions of dollars would have been paid to Brando for the inclusion of these scenes.
Lester's main task in completing Superman II was to film cheaply and quickly, to avoid further budget or scheduling overruns. According to many of the cast and crew, this entailed a noticeable drop in the quality of filmmaking, as certain scenes were hastily re-written and shot. Ultimately, the Newmans' campier take on Superman coupled with Lester's more comically-oriented sense of direction led to a Superman II that was a huge box office and critical success, but condemned by Donner as severely flawed. Lester has often been vilified by Superman purists who link his assumption of the directorial reins with a general downward spiral in the quality of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, e.g., Superman III was directed entirely by Lester. In a June 2006 interview with Hotdog Magazine, producer Ilya Salkind conceded that Lester did not share the same passion for the material as had his predecessor Richard Donner.