CHAPTER 5:
EVERYBODY WANTS SUPERMAN
As we all know, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was a terrible movie with terrible effects and a terrible message and terrible writing and terrible villains and terrible terribleness. And if you didn't know that before, now you do.
Anyway, take in the fact that Superman 4 was bad, plus the fact that the Chris Reeve Superman movies made less and less money with each movie, and that equals Superman 4 being a box office bomb. This led to the cancellation of Superman V.
Superman V was planned before the release of Superman 4. The movie was going to be called Superman: The New Movie before being changed to Superman V. A script was written by Cary Bates and Mark Jones, who were writers on the Superboy tv series. This script was about Superman dying and resurrecting (Fun Fact: This was written long before The Death & Return Of Superman comic book arcs). He was also going to be resurrected in the bottled Kryptonian city of Kandor, which probably means Brainiac would have appeared, but that was never confirmed. However, as I said, the project was cancelled after Superman 4 bombed.
In 1995, WB saw the success of the comic arc, The Death and Return of Superman and decided it was time to reboot the Superman movie franchise. This time, with a movie based on the Death and Reutrn arc, and they gave the project to producer Jon Peters.
Peters put television writer, Johnathan Lemkin in charge of the project, now called Superman Reborn. WB wanted the project to be more family-freindly and mainstream like Batman Forever, in order to appeal to the "MTV generation", which is the generation that refuses to believe anything bad came from the 80s or 90s.
Anyway, the script included Superman going through relationship issues, that would be interupted when Doomsday appears. Superman would lose his battle to Doomsday. Lois would meet with Superman before he dies and his... uh... "life force" would carry to Lois.... and she would have a virgin bir...
A virgin birth?!?!?
YAY!!! MORE JESUS SYMBOLISM IN SUPERMAN MOVIES!!!
cause it's not like we have too much already.
Back to the script, after Lois's virgin birth, the baby would grow to be 21 years old in the span of three weeks... What is this? The last Twilight movie? Is Jimmy Olsen going to fall in love with Superman's baby? But I digress. The rapidly aging baby would then turn out to literally be Superman reborn. This sounds like s**t. And WB thought the same thing. They hired Gregory Poirier to rewrite the script. His rewrite included Brainiac, Parasite, and a rip-off of the force called the "Phin-yar". This wasn't much better.
One day, Kevin Smith was brought in to rewrite one of three scripts: An adaptation of an Outer Limits episode, a sequel to Beetlejuice, and Superman Reborn. Smith read the Superman Reborn script and hated it. Through some complications, he ended up meeting with the head of WB, who asked what he would do differently. This led to him being hired by Jon Peters to rewrite the script, just as long as he included a giant spider.
After Smith finished his script, Tim Burton signed on to direct and Nicolas Cage was set to star as Superman.
That's an early costume test. That's not the final look. Get that away.
There we go.
Butron wasn't a fan of Smith's script so he got Wesley Strick to rewrite the script. Sandra Bullock was cast as Lois Lane. Chris Rock was cast as Jimmy Olsen. Brainiac and Lex Luthor (who were going to merge in the film) were to be played by Christopher Walken and Kevin Spacey. However, WB didn't like Stick's script and they got Dan Gilroy to rewrite the script. Due to the film's rising budget and the failure of Batman & Robin, the project was cancelled.
That was the cliffnotes of the Superman Lives production. If you would like to know more, watch this movie...
In 2002, WB hired JJ Abrams to write a script for a new Superman movie. However,Abrams changed a few things from the Superman lore. Krypton didn't blow up. Everyone was still alive. Superman was sent to Earth due to a prophecy. Lex Luthor was Kryptonian (this was changed in later drafts). Superman went to the Kents because they were the nicest people or something. Jor-El had an evil brother with an evil son. This all sounds weird. I have read both leaked drafts of this script. I don't know if I should love it or hate it.
Anyway, Scarlett Johansson was considered for Lois Lane. Anthony Hopkins was going to play Jor-El. Shia Labouf was going to play Jimmy Olsen. Robert Downey Jr, Ralph Finnes, and Johnny Depp were considered for Lex Luthor. Joel Edgerton was considered for the villain. Ty-Zor. Christopher Walken was set to play Perry White Many actors were wanted for Superman. Including Matt Bomer, Jude Law, the late Paul Walker, James Marsden, David Boreanaz, Jerry O'Connell, and Brendan Fraser. Josh Harnett was offered $100 million for a three-picture-deal, but he turned it down.
The two most notable people who were considered for Superman were Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill, who would both go on to play Superman. Pictures from their audtion tapes did leak, but the tapes themselves didn't. Not that we need to see them, because they went on to play the roles.
Ashton Kutcher was offered for the Superman role, but he declined it in fear he would fall victim to...
THE SUPERMAN CURSE!!!
McG was set to direct. However, he left to direct Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. So they put the project in the hands of the Brett Ratner. However, McG ended up returning to directing.
Now, Superman: Flyby would end up getting cancelled. However, we don't know why. Some believe it was because the script leaked online and was heavily critizied. Some believed that the entire project was just changed up when Bryan Singer signed on to direct after McG left again. Who knows? What we do know is Superman isn't the only guy with oh-so-many cancelled projects. Batman has his fair share of those, too.
TO BE CONTINUED...