Today we take a look behind the scenes of the most expensive movie that never was; the ill-fated Tim Burton and Nic Cage superhero collaboration, Superman Lives.
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Kevin Smith must have been angling for the paycheck with no real intention to get a movie made. His pick of Burton proves that. Kevin Smith was trolling from the start, likely when he first heard that they wouldn't let Superman fly. * UPDATE 6/29/23 * see below! Oldschool Superman does NOT fly. [Although this makes Burton an even worse choice to direct]
I was half expecting him to go on to say that they brought another writer on board who didn't like the choice of Tim Burton so he got Tim Burton fired.
Maybe it is time for another one of those "shrink people to send them into a person to fix it" movies? The Drinker's liver would be "a wild ride" ... and his brain would be an overflow of lightning transporting ideas.
The only hell that liver will know is this life. There is nothing but a heavenly reward awaiting such a patient, hard working, silently suffering soon-to-be martyr.
You're not. Honestly I think this could have worked if Cage actually pulled out one hell of a performance as the man of steel and not overreact like usual.
I want to see it, and I've got a feeling that I'd enjoy it. I have no problem with Cage and I know he's a big fan, which is a good sign to me. From a fan to fans. I'd watch the sht out of it, and I bet my ass, it's better than the majority of stupid crap Hollyweirds have been filming for years now.
@@briangresty1398 there's no way that happened. They may have done some test scenes at best but no one commits to filming an entire movie and then cans it.
Michael Bay directing a Tim Burton script? Imagine all the explosions and utter chaos infused with Tim Burton's wackiness, it would have been a glorious incomprehensible mess. ;)
“ Grandson too his grandpa“ Grandpa .. how did the internet blow up in your time.. “grandpa “ well Jr .. there was this actor called Nicolas Cage and he was in a Superman movie.. !
Johnny Depp would of not been any better. Because both of them are not manly enough to be superman. They both look like little weak beta males. A real superman should be 6 foot tall or so and weigh about 240 pounds with solid muscle, plus be athletic looking. No small necks either. Today's so called super hero's are weak little betas now, which is very laughable. Hell Dwayne The Rock Johnson would be the closet thing to a superman than those other guys. He has the masculine look with size. Accept i think the Rock is a little too tall to be superman though.
@@NeverTrustGovrnmentOrGlobalist nah, the new superman is alfa, he is fcking huge. In witcher he looks incredible, cant imagine anybody better than him. I dont like dc movies since dark knight series, but actor in superman is just great.
"Reeve was too old by this point and a tragic accident had left him paralyzed from the neck down." I like how being too old was still the primary concern
@@Everik-ct6pg True, his power was the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound.........which gave the illusion of him flying when he was really jumping. Still, by this point it was well established that superman flies and wears his suit. For them to even make those suggestions for the movie was ridiculous and pure ignorance of the topic. The spider thing was just creepy lol.
“The guy they chose to write it had no experience with comic books and even less experience with the character” Disney execs: “write that down! Write that down!”
@@TheOutlawMan It did decent box office but its budget was shockingly high. 170 million?! Where did they spend it?! The Matrix was less that 70 million. How is that possible?!
One of the saddest cases of "never made" is, in my opinion, the Miyazaki film about "Pippi Longstocking". He made concept art for it, went to Sweden to get a hang of how things looked, and even talked with Astrid Lindgren. She said no. He kept the drawings of Swedish towns for "Kiki's Delivery Service" as I recall. Lindgren later gave Canada the green light for their animated series. She said no to Miyazaki, but yes to Canada. The second most tragic movie never made is Guillermo del Toro's "At the Mountains of Madness", cancelled because the Wolfman-reboot flopping convinced the studio that Gothic horror was box office poison.
A ,,At the Mountains of Madness"Movie could be great.And while 99% of humanity would disagree, I found Wolfman quite entertaining despite its obvious flaws.
That's practically criminal. Miyazaki is a dreamweaver, he creates magical worlds. Why a children's author would not want him for a movie adaptation is beyond me.
@@lexprontera8325 Maybe Astrid Lindgren wasn´t fan of Miyazaki´s artstyle or scrip. Also one point which might have affected Lindgrens decision was that her friend Tove Jansson (Finnish author) had given her permission to make Moomin series (Moomin series 1969) in Japan to which she wasn´t satisfied at all. Next time when Tove Jansson gave her green light to make new Moomin animation series was 1988 which was first aired in 1990. Kiki´s delivery service was aired in 1989 so it kinda fits in picture.
To be fair Ghibli takes huge liberties with their adaptations. Howl's moving castle Vs. the book have very little in common IIRC. Maybe Lindgren did not want to greenlight an asaptation that would change the source material too much? Then again I'm biased since I'm swedish. Lindgren and her works are more or less canonized in this country.
Who knows? Time changes, and no people can become yes people. Not to mention, I don't believe Del Toro has forgotten about it. He waited a long time to make Pinocchio. So who knows?
Fun fact: Jon Peters later produced a western called "Wild wild west". In case you are wondering why Will Smith had to fight a gaint robot spider - Peters wanted that spider in a movie no matter what 😅
"Superman was re-imagined into a broody, angsty, socially-awkward outsider"...In other words, he became like every other main protagonist in a Tim Burton film?
No doubt. In today's world of woke bullshit, I could totally see them doing that - look at the New Warriors comic with the fat lady with the magical backpack. These people are already nuts.
Nick Cage as superman is so wrong I do not ever want to know what's going on in the mind of those who decided to try this. His face alone is enough for anyone with common sense to tell he's not the right actor for this role as edgy as you want it to be. Maybe as a Joker if we had to choose but not superman who (nearly)always looks perfectly handsome.
Ever since then, the two were at odds. I remember a story about how Kevin jokingly threatened to sue Tim Burton for copyright infingement because the end of Burton's Planet of the Apes movie was similar to a parody Kevin Smith had produced. Everyone took it seriously and Burton basically called him trash.
Nah I feel bad for Kevin Smith, he finally gets his dream job but has to work with a fool of a producer (Chris Nolan actually banned Jon Peters from the set of Man Of Steel) and a snobby director who thinks he’s better than everyone else when in reality he is not all that.
And he's already a billionaire brat lol, this is how they keep the money amongst themselves. 😝 Like that would have happened with that face and that- talent- to some random with a different gene pool, last name, and family business.
@@voluntaryismistheanswer sure, HW is incestuous as hell and plenty of ppl get their gigs by who they know, but cage does have talent and made some great movies. he's usually just fun to watch and has the charisma to be the leading man. i get it, though, it's a real toss-up whether he would have made it without having *all* the advantages.
So, John Peters wanted a Superman movie where he: 1. Doesn't fly 2. Wear the suit 3. Fights a giant spider in the finale Uh... isn't that basically the system they used for Smallville...?
“Oooo hey Superman. I see y’all got them fancy new suit. Oh that is so shiny and fabulous! Anyway, I’m gonna need you to ‘do that thing’ later, my servos are just all messed up, gurl.” I still have nightmares from Solo: A Shit Warts “story”...
Had it been made, it seems like it would've been "The Room" (2003) of Superhero movies....and then 15-20 years later someone could've made a "The Disaster Artist" (2017) type of movie about the making of "Superman Lives".
@@MrClassicmetal - Played by Nicholas Cage. I feel like it would have been too cringe to watch the whole thing in one sitting. Would have made a great Fear Factor episode.
Really fucking weird because either just stumbled onto another comment 2 videos ago mentioning heavens gate as a nightmare film, and literally over the weekend I stumbled on a new word three times in a day, after learning the fun (supposed) fact "if you don't hear a new word/thing 3 times in a XX(i think they usually just say 24 hours) then you'll completely forget that word/thing until it comes up again"(and I have no clue how they prove that, and tbh I'm not even sure which word it was that stood out to me lol) Guess I kinda disproved the whole thing, but really weird stumbling on basically the same comment in totally different places.
What worries me is knowing that little has changed within DC/Warner, they still don't understand the IPs they have. Like the case of the person responsible for the special effects of one of the Superman films having to explain to one of the top executives that Superman does not need the cape to fly.
That's cause studios are run by businessmen, not creatives. Bob Iger only got lucky with Marvel having Kevin Fiege. Without Fiege, the MCU would have looked the garbage Marvel movies that preceded it (Fantastic 4, Ghost Rider, Dare Devil, etc)
The book 'Superman Vs. Hollywood' has a fascinating description of this "movie's" troubled writing process. "...as soon as 'Kal-El,' Superman's Kryptonian name, escaped (Kevin) Smith's lips, (Jon) Peters blurted out 'Who's Kal-El?'" Oof.
Patty Jenkins with Wonder Woman. Another director who has no experience with comic books or with the character. They haven't learned their lesson at all.
@@DeadlyDanDaMan there are barely any people in Hollywood who read comics as children or have experience with a specific character. Very few. You can't expect a comic reader who just happens to be a writer or director in hollywood. All you can expect are good writers period.
Reminds me of that Gilbert Godfried joke: (Squinting and putting the blue card to his forehead like Johnny Carson): "Christopher Walken..." (Then proceeds to read the card): "Things you won't see in the Reeve's household".
@@fattiger6957 like when he bought an actual t rex skull to put in his castle, I think it was also around the time when he married that 18 yr old waitress.
"Could Nick Cage play an alien struggling to fit into human society...?" "ABSOLUTELY. He's been doing it his whole LIFE". OMG I about died with this...🤣
That was a beautiful statement because it's so true. And I say that as a Nic Cage fan. He's one of the few actors that can be in a terrible movie and still be incredibly entertaining.
Warner Bros: "You know, most people don't know that Nicholas Cage was supposed to be Superman 20 years ago. Are we sure that we should include an extra long cameo in the Flash of him fighting the giant spider from that cancelled movie" Also Warner Bros: *NAH IT'LL BE FINE*
What makes this even funnier is that the most popular video related to cage playing supes is this critical drinker video. Meaning the execs at WB probably saw this video and decided to make it into live action
I read the Kevin Smith script that was leaked online in the late 90s/early 2000's. It was actually a really, reallly good script. It had to have been the undoctored version though because he flew wore the costume and everything.
@@muddashucka9743 ah jeez it was a print out from a website at least twenty years ago. It started with a Superman taking down deadshot after he tries to assassinate the mayor and then getting evidence that Lex Luthor was behind it it. When his XRay vision hits the evidence it somehow destroys the evidence but let's Superman know he was behind it. Lex has a funny joke about a law to outlaw Superhumans passing so he can legally shoot superman's "Pajama clad ass out of the sky, legally" Lex's big plan was a way to block out yellow sunlight from reaching earth slowly draining Superman's powers... It may have been Brainiac whom was working his way to earth that did it. But Brainiac unleashed a creature, which all but is Doomsday and Superman is killed fighting him. Funeral and sad Metropolis, the sun filter and Brainiac lead to riots in Metro and Gotham. Batman cameos and says basically "Sorry Metro, I can't help you." Superman's ship that brought him to earth turns out to be a sentient machine that morphs into Super Suit and carries his body back to the fortress. Apparently he recovers and the fortress tries to charge his body with yellow sun energy but it's slow going as he can only charge his power in small amounts due to his near death state. Earth is being routed by Brainiac whom he confronts in the ship suit, that mimics all of his abilities. They didn't outright say it but I got John Henry Irons vibes out of it. Anyway, supes fights and destroys Brainiac after fighting his way to space to get past the yellow sun blocker. I can't remember exactly how it ends but I actually liked it. I'm not the biggest Kevin Smith fan but the dude can write a good story when he isn't crushing childhoods.
“Since it’s fun to look back at Hollywood’s most embarrassing failures...” You mean three-quarters of the films they’ve produced for the last few years?
I must have missed the quarter of films that weren't complete shit. The only film that seemed decent was Joker. Still haven't seen it but it is the only one that even slightly interests me.
Actually, I often dream of the sequel that would include Nic Cage as Superman, George Clooney as Batman, and Keanu Reeves as John Constantine fighting a vengeful Thanagarian Snarebeast
That bit about fighting a spider in the finale - Jon Peters had an obsession with putting a giant mechanical spider at the end of his films, and he eventually got his way in Wild Wild West
Why not. After her fifth pregnancy she settles down as Wonder Mum not knowing, that her husband is an evil genius about to conquer the world. When she realizes, shes is going to use a housewives means (lots of kitchen tools) to bring him down and drag him to a marriage therapist. It turns out the therapist is the true mastermind behind all evil (have to serve some cliches) and makes the husband to kill himself to get rid of a witness. Out of frustration Wonder Mum is eating her six children, while watching Super Dad vs. Bat Dad.
Kevin Smith died to me when he reviewed Star Wars, and called Rose's "thats how we are going to win...not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" a beautiful line.
Yep, Kevin Smith is a joke nowadays. He's a Disney and IMDB shill who's days of making good movies are long over. The Jay and Silent Bob reboot was sad and pathetic.
Kevin shouldn't have cast his buds for chasing Amy. If he would've went with Drew Barrymore, John Stewart and David schwimmer, I think his stock would have went in a different direction. Now, he cries over every star wars or comic book scene in a movie or television show.
John Peters: "Let's see. . . Super Man can't fly and can't wear his costume. Uhhhh. . . we need a giant spider somewhere. . . Let's have a robot dog, aaaaand gay R2D2 with *attitude.* There we go. Yes! I'm a genius!" I'm totally not taking the piss. This will be a beloved classic in no time.
@@robertfitzgerald3118 Who also thinks he's a tough guy streetfighter who bullies his underlings. I saw the Superman Lives documentary and Peters seems like the biggest dbag in the world.
@@noble14 Yeah, you need a bit of an ego. But Peters is the kind of dbag who bullies people because he knows they can't fight back. If he was a normal person in a normal job, he would have been fired and/or gotten his ass kicked. Watch the doc. It is disgusting how this guy acted.
@@fattiger6957 aight, I'll check it out. I've noticed similar from alot of directors and even actors, it's like they think their shit doesn't stink and that makes them kings.
I've watched that *"The Death of Superman Lives"* documentary couple times now. Pretty damn interesting, and the concept art and designs were definitely interesting.
Anyone remember when Madtv did the sketch “Leaving Metropolis” where they had Nic Cage playing an alcoholic Superman? *Superman enters AA meeting in full costume* Superman: hi, I’m Clark Kent, and I’m an alcoholic Everyone: Hi, Superman! Superman: Superman?! How’d you...*looks down* Oh f**k!!! Superman
@@Paulafan5 There were a whole lot of scenes in Spider-Man 2 where people see him without his mask, and that's considered to be a contender for the greatest superhero movie ever made.
So Superman had to go through therapy, deal with a relationship the whole movie, and use a suit after he loses his powers? Are you sure this isn’t Wonder Woman 1984?
I don't know anything about that shit movie but I remember Diana losing her powers in the seventies doing the Avengers schtick in the increasingly irrelevant COMIC BOOKS..
Thanks. The way you describe the film making process and the negative influence of money, egos, and incompetence, it's a wonder that every Hollywood movie isn't a "Superman Lives."
The greatest tragedy in Superman's cinematic legacy was the wasted potential of Henry Cavill. That man was put on this earth to play the part of Superman and they gave him one garbage script after another... what a shame, what a waste.
Yeah, even MOS could have been green if Snyder had actually understood what "Superman Earth One" was all about. Instead, he just copied some scenes and randomly threw them in a script.
@@genox3636 bruh Hugh Jackman is the worst example he got some of the best treatment by Fox and he was the main character of the x men franchise. And he was in 7 movies where he got a big role
I personally think man of steel was a banging movie. One of the best action films I’ve ever seen. When superman and Zod were fighting it actually felt like two gods were beating the shit out of each other on screen
If the current writers at DC Comics were in charge of the movies, that would probably happen. Either her or that black lady who was also in Ghostbusters 2016.
@Luc Germain Lol, compare post-n52 to what it was before. Alan Scott is randomly gay. Wally West is randomly black. Power Girl gets a replaced by a black mary-sue with a much more modest outfit. Batman gets a lesbian, and two black sidekicks added to his already bloated family. Batgirl becomes an annoying sjw. They humiliate Lex Luthor in the Superwoman book and say he just stole everything from his sister. DC publishes Gotham High and I am Not Starfire, woke garbage that appeals to no one. Those are just the things I can think of from the top of my head. Yeah, Marvel might be worse, but DC is sure as hell not innocent in their own demise.
@@diegohaung2831 Marvel's ramp up to woke garbage was much faster and stronger, but DC has still gone woke. They had a chance to course correct with DC Rebirth, but they went right back to woke trash afterwards.
The death of Superman was the worst of the 3 death of Superman comics(Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow & All Star Superman): Not him fight with his most iconic enemy, not him tying up all the loose end leaving a legacy for the future,... but some guy we never met(Doomsday) whom backstory is only told AFTER his fight with Sup is finished, suddenly show up beat Sup to death. The best part of it was Sup's funeral & every hero tried to fill his shoes(symbolize by the fact that it took a bunch of them to lift his Key to The Fortress of Solitude)
@@qty1315 He also didn't die in Whatever happened to the Man Of Tomorrow. But somehow both story handled his "death"(disappear from the world) better than The Death Of Superman
@@aokhoinguyenang3992 I think him getting killed by a total unknown enemy was part of the message the story was trying to get across.Superman dominated his enviroment and even his most sworm enemies were subdued,but as happens in life,disaster can come from even the most impropable places.Personally,I liked his death arc,from a story point of view.But I'm not a fan of his,so I can get your frustration. I do agree however that bringing him back a dozen or two issues later was a dick move and certainly undone the impact the storyline had or could have had.So much for artistic integrity.
@@aokhoinguyenang3992 Personally, I thought that his death was handled pretty well in Death Of Superman. A random twist of fate takes him away from us, just like how most of us will likely die. It feels kinda real in a way that a noble sacrifice preceded by a monologue doesn't. It also introduced Doomsday, who has become a very iconic and interesting character. My issue is that, by resurrecting him and basically making Superman immortal, it basically set a precedent for death not mattering in comics ever again. You can't have people take a story called The Death Of Batman seriously anymore because of how Superman's death was handled.
"Could Nick Cage play an alien struggling to fit into human society? Absolutely, he's been doing it his whole life!" ... This shit put me in tears; your linguistic ability knows no bounds Drinker.
I've stopped watching Superman when the 3D version came out. I had seen enough Louis and Clark by then and I already knew that 3D was gonna tank. Reason why is cause I've been to a 3D based movie themepark before in France (Futurescope) years before 3D got popular. The entire family came out totally sick, headaches and nauseated. Reason I learned a year after that during my optometry study. Basically you overstretch your accommodation muscles creating these sickness feelings. Even back then which was still a couple of years before the 3D tv push it was already known in the scientific world that it was gonna be a clusterfuck, but they invested so much into 3D that they were gonna push it through anyhow. It's why I never bought a 3D tv back then.
Just the Supergirl "Superman". The trailer for Superman and Lois looks promising, I heard it had HBO-max budget/help/writers -or something, but it's likely going to be preachy with politics, but maybe they'll learn. After Reeves, Dean Cain/Lois and Clark was good. A bit of metrosexualization for the time, women ramping up and stuff, but Clark had the home town farm life etc. and it wasn't so bad. The first show to use Kryptonite-infected/enhanced people, and the first to produce "super speed" on camera for the first time. Smallville then was paramount, amazing, had C Reeves/Margot Kidder/old cast in cameos - filled in the gaps of the C Reeve stories in clever ways, and I had no issues with that. Man of Steel was amazing, the "batman begins" real world version of Superman. Not blind hope/optimism, but "how would the world react today" - and real world consequences with Zod etc. I had no issues. Dawn of Justice (extended cut/extra half hour) was an excellent Batman movie, with the warehouse fight being the best Batman fight on screen (intelligence, all gadgets use, uses a grappling gun to pull a guy in for a hook punch, uses the samurai arm guards to take on 4 knife wielding guys at once etc.) - excellent Batman movie, not so much a Superman movie, but the extended cut makes it flow better, and it's a fun blockbuster to watch. JL was not good. No GL or MM, and WW has a solo bank scene - even though she has her own movie, and you see 2 seconds of the Flash solo scene etc., and Superman - a leader - is in the last half hour. Yes, The Supergirl Superman is that, but all the others aren't bad in my opinion. Superman Returns even had it's fun moments, and "Clark" was really no different. The Airplane in Baseball field, bullet to the eye - a fun blockbuster with a hero you like, not so much an in depth Shawshank Redemption type.
The very reason for the death of superman was the family were in court with DC over the likeness rights to superman - and DC fully expected to loose; that's why they killed superman, and set up a handful of 'supermen' to be reborn; it was insurance in case they lost the red & blue. Either electric or steel supermen would have just taken center stage...
@@arkenmint9030 I'm not sure about that explanation. Had DC lost ownership to Superman, they still could have licensed the use of the character from the Siegal and Shuster families. And if they couldn't get the license, they wouldn't have been able to even use the name Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Metropolis, Superboy or anything the original two creators invented.
The only time he showed somewhat of an attitude was cut out of ESB. He took the warning sign off of the locked door to a room filled with a herd of wampas. Stormtroopers ran into it and the wampas had a snack.
Superman is wholesome and stable. He isn't struggling with 'his humanity.' He knows who he is, what he's feeling, what his mission is and why. He's the best of us. That's what makes him so enduring. Adam West batman has probably the best rogues gallery in film history and was brilliantly cast. It was a TV program aimed at children, after all.
You could try tying the "struggling with his humanity" in with him learning his powers and figuring out what he wanted to do with his life and powers, but honestly, that's still a stretch and should only last a short time if it did happen.
@@onyxrose4349 the writers project their imorality on the character and call it 'edgy" or "a modern take" or worse still, a "reimagining..." and you see what's in their imaginations. Clark Kent is not Tony Stark, "struggling" with drunkeness, arrogance and dubious moral choices. He is a simple, small town man that knows right from wrong and chooses right, that's who mild-mannered Clark Kent is. As Superman, Clark uses his powers to do good. Goodness is what makes him extraordinary, not the superpowers.
I wouldn't mind seeing Drinker tackling "Superman IV", and the other Superman Films. I'm a big fan of the history of those films, and the character. Plus, Superman is my guy!
"Superman can't fly" Ok, no. "He can never appear in costume." Ok... no. "He has to fight a giant spider monster." Well, maybe. "He has to have a sassy robotic assistant like a gay r2d2 with attitude." You're a horrible writer and no one should ever work for you.
@@jekblom123 The first time superman was depicted as a flying being, was a mistake by a new artist on issue #10 who assumed that the ability to fly was in his skillset because depictions of him leaping through the air made it look like he was flying. He didn't fly again until the mid 1940's, so honestly we should have seen a superman movie where he can't fly. Not that I really care, I think Superman has always been a pretty lame superhero compared to most others
That honestly sounds like they were intentionally torpedoing the project. When Superman 4 the quest for peace looks better than your project someone at the top needs to get canned.
One of the most memorable aspects of Burton's Batman movies is the dark, monolithic depiction of Gotham City, as envisioned by Anton Furst and Bo Welch. I remember, upon first seeing Coruscant in *Star Wars: The Phantom Menace* , I thought to myself that had Burton made his Superman movie, this is what Metropolis would look like.
Burton's Gotham is dark and dilapidated with an pseudo industrial look mixed with the art deco. Metropolis isn't supposed to be dark and dirty. It's art deco, but mixed with futurism. Since he was a fan of German expressionism, maybe Burton would have pulled from Metropolis (the silent film) but Gotham isn't really a evidence that his Metropolis would have been good.
I remember seeing a fan trailer for Superman Lives that someone uploaded to RU-vid a few years ago. There’s no doubt it would’ve been a train wreck but I still kind of wish it had happened.
in one of the better timelines I like to imagine that this movie got made and every facial expression from Nic Cage would be reenacted with your friends endlessly
I remember seeing a Kevin Smith interview on this and he was talking about the dude's fixation on the giant spider, which ended up being in the very forgettable Wild Wild West movie
Seen that film a few years back and it's more fun than people credit it for. The scene where Will Smith meets the villain and they start insulting each other with quips about him being a cripple and Will being black is something you probably won't see in films today and it's hilarious.
black coffee, dark south etc - great quipping. I actually enjoy it, knowing it would be cringe. I purposely watch shit films just for the "what the fuck were they thinking"
Drinker, I thank you starting this Production Hell series. I love hearing the production side of things for all things film and especially love to hear 'development hell' stories as one might hope they could serve as warnings for future productions. Cheers!
This is not the first time that I have heard about this story, but this really is one of my favorite stories ever. I think once Kevin Smith even stated that he was in a meeting to discuss his revised script, and one of the studio people asked him about who was Kal-El. If a studio that is making a Superman movie needs to ask that question, you're already off to a rough start. Fun fact: The giant robot spider that was planned to be in "Superman Lives" was used in "Wild Wild West".
The studio isn't supposed to know who Kal-El is, it's just supposed to hire a guy who knows who Kal-El is, which if I know anything about Kevin Smith is the one thing they did right.
@@shane8037 The guy in charge of putting together a property should know some of the basics of the property. Not the head of the studio, but the head of the studio doesn't produce, he hires producers.
I remember reading about this story as a kid in the early 2000’s and thinking it sounded like a bad fanfiction.. then I learned later that it’s just Hollywood.
Tim Burton, an "arthouse director"? Hell no. Maybe way back when he first made short films, but by the time he took on this project, he was just another piece of the Hollywood establishment.
They should have gone with Bruce Campbell as Superman, directed by Terry Gilliam in a rich Art Deco setting. A quirky F. Murray Abraham as Lex Luthor, Sandra Bullock or Rosie MacDowell as Lois Lane and I bet it would have fu(king rocked.