While Sam Raimi's 1990 film Darkman marked his first foray into the superhero genre pre-Spider-Man, the film moviegoers got almost wasn't his vision. As it turns out, Raimi replaced Universal Pictures' cut of Darkman with his own at the last minute.
Universal wanted to edit Darkman without Raimi's involvement in an attempt to boost preview scores. However, producer Robert Tapert explained to THR that editor Bud S. Smith was hired to re-arrange Raimi's initial two-hour cut, which he agreed to do on the condition that he was given some space, editing the film while Raimi and Tapert were briefly away in Florida. This new 85-minute cut didn't work, though. "We tested that, and it did not test as well as the longer version, which was Sam's cut," Tapert said. "I think we went through four or five more test screenings, and each time the score got lower and lower, and we got more depressed."
Darkman composer Danny Elfman similarly described himself as "pissed" at Universal's decision, to the point that he "threatened to take my name off the film and return my fee" if Raimi's version wasn't restored. His main point of contention was the studio's desire to remove so many of Darkman's weirder elements, as Elfman felt that "This crazy stuff is what makes the film."
However, with Universal prepared to go forward with the Smith cut anyway, Raimi and Tapert chose to re-edit Darkman under two days without anyone's knowledge. From how Tapert described the decision, "We were incredibly disheartened and dispirited. And Sam’s present editor, a guy by the name of Bob Murawski, said, 'There is a much better movie than what we are locking right now.' So, the decision was made that we would re-edit the movie. We spent 48 hours basically re-cutting the entire movie, restoring things we thought were important. We added nine minutes back in, things we really liked that the preview audiences would recoil from, but that was what it was meant to do. We locked it — and didn’t tell anybody."
Despite Universal's outrage, Raimi and Tapert's last-minute decision made it impossible to stop the film negatives from being prepared for critics. The final product was well-received and, thanks to a clever "Who is Darkman?" marketing campaign, the film opened at #1 at the box office.