5 SUPERMAN Movies That Never Happened Which Would Have Been Seriously Awesome
Over the years, numerous attempts have been made to bring Superman to the big screen but most have failed. So, with Man of Steel 2 on the horizon, we take a look at the five most amazing sounding attempts!
While there have been rumblings that Man of Steel 2 is in the works and may have a director in the form of Matthew Vaughn, the sequel appears to be moving forward at a snail's pace and might just be trapped in development hell. We simply don't know at this stage but you have to believe it will happen sooner rather than later and Warner Bros. may be waiting until after Justice League to announce it.
Either way, this isn't the first time that Superman has struggled to fly onto the big screen as there have actually been countless attempts over the years to bring the iconic DC Comics superhero to theaters.
What you'll find here is an in-depth look at five Superman projects which failed to become a reality along with an in-depth look at what they would have entailed and why they never actually happened. It's bizarre just how many of these would have killed Superman off, that's for sure, so we shouldn't have been surprised when Zack Snyder did it in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice last year...
5. Superman Flyby
It's then that Superman: Flyby was set to flashback to the hero's origin story (including him saving Air Force One, a sequence later used in Superman Returns) before he was resurrected and put an end to Kata-Zor for good. During that time, Lex Luthor had become President but revealed - in a bizarre twist - that he too was Kryptonian and after one final battle, Superman flew off into outer space to find Krypton and put an end to it threatening Earth for good. That was set to be a cliffhager ending setting up a sequel but after a number of filmmakers dropped out, Bryan Singer came on board and reworked it as a sequel to the original movies.
4. Batman vs. Superman
Yes, we got a movie pitting these two iconic heroes against each other last year but Batman vs. Superman would have been a lot different to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Based on a script by a script by Andrew Kevin Walker, Wolfgang Petersen was attached to direct and seemed excited to pit these two very different heroes against one another. In the movie, a retired Bruce Wayne's wife was set to be murdered by The Joker, prompting the Dark Knight to come out of retirement for revenge.
However, Lex Luthor would later be revealed as the villain pulling the strings and Batman would have turned against Superman for a while - the Man of Steel would not have been happy with his old friend brutalising Gotham's criminals - until they put their differences aside to team up and take Luthor down (sound familiar?). Names like Matt Damon, James Franco, Jude Law, and Johnny Depp were batted around for either one of the starring roles and it definitely sounds like Batman vs. Superman had the potential to be a fun time. Unfortunately, Warner Bros. put the brakes on this one and it vanished into development hell until ultimately being scrapped.
3. Superman Returns 2
Not a huge amount is known about the direction this sequel would have taken but screenwriter Michael Dougherty has revealed that other Kryptonians would have been introduced here and that Brainiac would have more than likely been the film's big bad alongside Bizarro. Routh was expected to come back as Clark Kent and that bizarre storyline about his illegitimate son probably would have continued too. That "New Krypton" landmass floating above Earth was also going to come into play but with little to no profit made on the first movie, it quietly faded away.
2. Superman V
However, upon learning that Superman was contained within his collection, Brainiac was set to shrink himself down and the battle would have ended with the hero's demise. However, upon being reborn in the bottled city of Kandor, he would have returned to save the day! Alas, the rightsholders at the time put the movie on hold to focus on other projects and by the time they were ready to move forward with it, Warner Bros. had announced the Lois & Clark TV show which put the brakes on a big screen iteration of the Man of Steel.
1. Superman Reborn/Superman Lives
That would have also featured Brainiac as a villain and Superman's death and resurrection would have come into play yet again. Unfortunately, Peters had a lot of bizarre requests and with no flights or tights and a giant spider all expected to appear, things got a bit much for Smith when he was asked to add a "gay R2-D2" as Brainiac's sidekick! Despite that, Tim Burton still signed on to direct and Nicolas Cage was going to star as Superman but things thankfully fell apart due to a variety of creative and production problems.
Do you wish any of these Superman movies had happened or is the best place for them on the shelf? As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below.