Movies have been around for an eternity. Ideas for movies that may never come to fruition have been around for an eternity. But, that’s the business of film for you… some ideas are brought to the screen and are successful, or they fail miserably. However, sometimes there are ideas that are too cool and way too interesting that when they’re cancelled or just weren’t intended to be made anyway, we ask ourselves; “What the actual Hell, Hollywood?” And that’s what we’re talking about. Hell. Development Hell, that is. And, I’m starting off with literally the most intriguingly controversial film to almost make it to the silver screen… the Tim Burton directed, Nicolas Cage starring… SUPERMAN LIVES!!!
The decade was the 1990’s. The Hubble Telescope launched during the Space Shuttle Discovery Mission. The World Wide Web was officially introduced as an Internet service. And Batman Returns was released to theatres to positive reviews, but ultimately alienated its audience due to its dark and violent nature, being less profitable than the original film and costing director Tim Burton’s employment with Warner Brothers and their intended Batman 3 (which, eventually became the horrible Batman Forever, which then lead to… you know). Yes, the cinematic legacy of The Dark Knight was certainly a fall from grace. What about the Man of Steel? Well, it was the 90’s, and Superman 3 and 4 sucked, and Christopher Reeves was unfortunately paralysed in a horse riding accident. It seemed that Superman was in need of a cinematic reboot. Who would Warner Brothers hire to bring the red undies back to the big screen? Tim Burton, of course! He has a great visionary flair and worked well with special effects (practical), and who would don the red cape and slap a giant ‘S’ on their chest? Nicolas Cage, of course! He’s always publicly said to be a massive Superman fan! So, great. We have a director and star. Now, we need a great script with a great story written by a great writer… this’ll be simple, right?
No, not exactly. Having made a few short films myself, I have to say; the worst part of trying to get a film off the ground is the script, because obviously it HAS to be good. Otherwise, the entire film could turn out to be a steaming pile of crap. The Producers had settled on bringing The Death of Superman storyline to cinemas. This would have proved risky, but not impossible. The Producers initially hired Kevin Smith to pen the script, and to make a really long and complicated story short… nothing went to plan. Tim Burton hated Kevin Smith’s writing, Kevin Smith wasn’t all for having Tim Burton direct, and Jon Peters wanted Supes to battle a giant bloody spider (also, during the production of ‘The Witches of Eastwick’, he told director George Miller that he wanted aliens to appear in the movie and even went as far as to bring in a stuntman in full make-up and costume and told Miller to put him “anywhere”… and that goes to show that producers should NEVER be apart of the creative process in film).
Anyway, creative process aside, would Tim Burton’s version of a Superman movie have been any good? It’s tough to say, Tim Burton may have done well with his two Batman movies, but he isn’t without his more bizarre creative ideas. For example, his movies are mostly focused on character rather than story, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with Batman, you need to have a great mix of both, considering the depth of the character and the situations he finds himself in. And speaking of character, Tim was known to be more emotionally invested in the villains rather than the Caped Crusader, whilst it was fine in the first movie that the Joker gets more time spent on him considering that he is such a lively character, we still got enough Bruce for him to truly make an impression on us, but then in Batman Returns, whilst I love the movie and it is actually my favourite, we do get too little of Batman as the movie focuses very heavily on Danny DeVito’s Penguin, as well as Catwoman and squeezing Max Schreck in there, too. In some scenes, Batman wouldn’t even say a word. Superman is a very vocal character and very complicated to get right on screen, so all the attention would HAVE to have been on him otherwise his character development would be off. Another thing is that Tim’s creative decisions aren’t always on point. For example, as much as I love his iteration of The Penguin, why on Earth did they have to make him a mutant man from the sewers? Now, bearing in mind I loved it. But, it was just a strange route to go to for the character. With Tim helming such a massive property like Superman, of course he was probably going to get complete creative control. But, obviously film is a collaborative business so the writers were going to make the movie as similar in tone to the comics as possible. And once again, Producers would have wanted the film their way for tickets and toys. So, there’s a factor as to why the movie never got off the ground; a clash of ideas.
How would have Nicolas Cage fared as the Man of Steel? To be honest, I thought he would have been great. As bad as he can be, he could also be one Hell of a powerhouse actor. Cage has always been known to be a HUGE Superman fan, going so far as to naming his child Kal-El (which is freakin’ awesome), so he obviously had a passion for the material and would have done supremely well in the role. With the right direction from Tim Burton, and the best script from whichever team of writers they went with, which would have had to have the most exciting action sequences and the most amazing emotional pull, I believe Nicolas Cage would have been argued by fans as one of the best portrayals of Superman/Clark Kent. Up there with George Reeves, Christopher Reeves and Henry Cavill… sorry Brandon Routh, you were okay.
The main antagonists were reportedly going to be Lex Luthor and Brainiac, and at some point in the story they plot to destroy Superman by morphing into a cyborg known as “Lexiac”. Now, again this is the sort of thing that could have potentially riled fans up because it’s one of those things that are so ridiculously contrived that it wouldn’t have even worked in a comic-book movie. Fans of comics are a tough audience, on one hand they hate it when you stray too far from the source material, but at the same time they hate it when you don’t take liberties and follow it too closely. But, this Lexiac thing is just too much. Especially, if (hypothetically) the movie was made and released to theatres and got great reviews, it would have been awful to be a fan sitting in the cinema with your buddies, you’re enjoying the film and then POW!!! This strange abomination appears on screen and completely ruins it and takes you out of the movie. It’s happened to me before whilst watching Iron Man 3, I was having a good time and stuff and I was looking forward to Tony finally meeting Ben Kingsley’s mysterious Mandarin, and then… yeah. I know, I’m beating a dead horse, but things like that stay with people and can ultimately change your judgement on a film.
Speaking of Lex and Brainiac, who do you think Tim would have cast as those two characters? I always thought that Jack Nicholson would have played Lex, as I always thought he’d be a great fit for the character and would not imitate Gene Hackman, but pay tribute to him whilst making him his own as he did The Joker. The two work so well together, it’s upsetting that they didn’t do more movies together outside of Batman and Mars Attacks! As for Brainiac, for some reason I always saw Paul Reubens being cast, and I don’t know exactly why. It’s off-kilter casting decisions like that that Tim excels at. He can make casting decisions pay off like Michael Keaton did as Bruce Wayne and how Nicolas Cage would have done as Superman.
Colleen Atwood, a long time collaborator and friend of Tim Burton did the costume design for the cancelled film, and yes, she did a great job. To me, she would have succeeded in making the Kryptonian costumes more “other-worldly”, and watching the documentary for this film “The Death of Superman Lives”, I was greatly impressed with her work, and seeing Nicolas Cage in her designed suits got me excited for what could have been, but unfortunately, we’ll never see them in action. When it comes to music, only John Williams can truly do Superman justice. His iconic theme just resonated with audiences and truly brought the character to life cinematically. You can’t think of Superman without hearing that tune. But, of course, Tim Burton most likely had his own plans and would have wanted Danny Elfman to score the film. This is something else that would have excited me because I truly love Elfman’s work and I think he would have taken Williams’ iconic music, and put a unique alien spin on it to really reel us into the world.
The movie almost nearly got into active production, but, of course, it was shut down. If it has happened, what would the reaction have been? It could have been one the most financially successful superhero movies in the world due to the talent involved with a mixed critical and fan reception, OR it could have been a monumental flop of Doomsday proportions, with negative press galore, but overtime it would have garnered a huge cult following.
Yes, the story of Tim Burton’s ‘Superman Lives’ is a fascinating one. It’s a story that could be a movie itself. Like I said, it is a shame that the movie never got made, because there WAS genuine passion behind every aspect of it. It’s a unmade movie, that, if it did get made, it would have made its stamp on Hollywood and the superhero genre whether it was successful or not.
As Kal-El once said:
“It’s better to risk everything than to hold on to nothing.”