Warner Archive Bringing 3-Hour SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE TV Cut To Blu-Ray

For genre fans of a certain age, it is a touchstone. Over two February evenings in 1982, ABC aired an extended, three-hour and eight minute without commercials, cut of Superman: The Movie. With forty minutes added back into the hit film, it was an event that had genre fans talking about for years. This version, sometimes referred to “Salkind International Extended Cut” after the film’s producers who assembled the edit, has been seen periodically, but it has never been available on home video until now.

The Warner Archive Collection will be releasing the fabled three hour cut of Superman: The Movie as one-half of a two-disc blu-ray set, paired with director Richard Donner’s Director’s Cut which was first release in 2000.

The three hour cut of Superman: The Movie adds approximately forty minutes of footage back in the picture. Among the footage that was reinstated into the film includes more scenes on Krypton and Smallville, more of Superman’s first approach to Lex Luthor’s underground lair and Superman saving Miss Teschmacher from being fed to a lion under Lex’s orders.

No release date has been announced yet for the set, but the second it is made available for pre-order, I know that my cash will be on the barrel-head for this.