One movie that nobody seems to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of is Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Hands down the worst Superman film (although Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is up there) this 1987 suffers from a low-budget an inane script that had the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) fighting an evil clone of himself created by Lex Luthor (a slumming Gene Hackman) who is known as “Nuclear Man” (played by the hilariously named Mark Pillow). As the fantastic documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films chronicles, the movie was beset with numerous troubles during its production, most notably budgetary issues that made the film look cheap.
Originally, the film had Luthor creating two Nuclear Men, the one featured in the finished product and another, way goofier — if you can imagine such a thing — version who was a bit like Bizarro from the comics…if you were squinting and/or completely drunk.
But the movie couldn’t have possibly been any worse if this sequence was included in it, could it?
Uh-huh. Just see for yourself:
That’s actor Clive Mantle as Nuclear Man, Mach 1. You can find this deleted scene and more head-scratchers on The Superman Motion Picture Anthology:
1978-2006 box set. (If you can stomach any more, that is). There’s a lot happening here, including the over-the-top slapstick that makes some of the more egregious comedy moments from Superman II seem downright subtle to a music track — hopefully a temp one, but who knows — that sounds like madness.
So while Superman IV is hardly a masterpiece, just take to heart that it isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. That’s something right? Hello?