There are many potentially great comic book movies that haven't been made over the years for one reason or another, but Superman Lives is among the most infamous.
After helming Batman and Batman Returns, director Tim Burton looked set to bring the Man of Steel back to the big screen alongside actor Nicolas Cage. What little we've seen from the project suggests it would have been a far cry from the filmmaker's gothic take on the Dark Knight, with a lot of cheese and an aesthetic akin to Batman & Robin.
Ultimately, we'll never know how it might have turned out, but Cage shared more insights into Superman Lives during a recent interview with Variety.
"They wanted Renny Harlin to do the movie. I sat down with Renny. I was doing another picture, he came to the trailer and we talked. I liked Renny...but I thought if I’m going to do this, it’s such a bullseye to hit," the actor recalls. "I said, this has to be Tim Burton."
"I called Tim and said, ‘Would you do this?’ Tim didn’t cast me, I cast Tim, and Tim said yes. I loved what he did with Michael [Keaton] and Batman, and I was a big fan."
"I love ‘Mars Attacks.’ I thought ‘Mars Attacks’ was just a fantastic, groundbreaking movie. He’s a groundbreaker! But they were scared at the studio because of ‘Mars Attacks.’ Warner Brothers had lost a lot of money on the movie. These movies that are really weird, that challenge and break ground, they piss a lot of people off. I think they got cold feet."
"They’d spent a lot of money already building the sets and the costume and what have you," Cage continues. "It was more of a 1980s Superman with like, the samurai black long hair. I thought it was gonna be a really different, sort of emo Superman, but we never got there."
Given the weird Superman comic book stories being told in the 90s - including the hero's return from the dead with a number of doppelgängers - there's a chance this weird movie might have worked. Instead, it joined a long list of unmade projects revolving around the hero, with Kal-El remaining on the shelf until 2006's Superman Returns.
The Man of Tomorrow later stood tall in Man of Steel, but won't star in another solo outing until 2025's Superman: Legacy. Perhaps Cage will finally get the chance to suit up in The Flash?