Everything that went wrong with Tim Burton’s ‘Superman’ movie
As sad as it is, movie productions get axed all the time. Often they’ll spend months and years in development hell, only for the studio’s interest to wane and support for the project will completely disappear. Other times, a film will be close to shooting, but a call from above will can the whole thing. Tim Burton was just three weeks away from shooting the planned Superman reboot, Superman Lives, when Warner Bros pulled the plug and killed the movie forever.
The first person attached to the superhero project, however, was Nicolas Cage. Chosen for the titular role as Superman, Cage was riding a high wave following his recent Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas in 1995. Whilst he was excited about the chance to play Kal-El, it seems he was considerably less enthusiastic about the director attached. After signing on to the project, he immediately championed for Burton to be reinstated at the helm.
Burton was still buzzing off the hugely successful Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1996), which effectively kickstarted the superhero genre as we know it and demonstrated to studios just how profitable they could really be. With Burton in the director’s seat and Cage prepped for the lead role, they seemed more or less ready to go. All they needed was a finished script, which was where things started to go downhill.
Kevin Smith, a self-proclaimed comic-book nerd and the writer/director of indie cult classic Clerks, had been contacted by Warner Bros prior to either Burton or even Cage’s involvement. They wanted a screenplay to rejuvenate the Superman franchise, and Smith was all too happy to help. From the get-go, however, producer Jon Peters had extremely specific ideas on what the story could be, insisting that three elements feature in the script.
In The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, a 2015 documentary about the doomed production, Smith recounts what producer Peters wanted from him. “He goes, ‘Number 1: I don’t want to see him fly. I think it looks fake. I hate all that flying shit. Number 2: I don’t want to see him in that suit. Number 3: He has to fight a giant spider in the third act.” Despite attempts to cater to these bizarre demands, Smith was ultimately replaced by another writer… who was replaced yet again by another.
With this sort of turmoil in the writing department, things weren’t looking particularly good for the imminent start date of Superman Lives. Remembering the weeks leading up to the shoot, would-be director Burton told Howard Stern during a radio interview that they didn’t even have a finished script. “At studios, you don’t have scripts — unfortunately,” he said. When prompted by Stern to answer if they were going to make the film without one, Burton laughs and replies: “Well, that’s what we were doing”.
In the same interview, Burton explains how the producer’s creative involvement wasn’t just restricted to the script; they had very strong opinions on the design team, too: “They said, ‘We see him wearing corduroy.’ As Superman! And they said, ‘Maybe give him boots, but with flames on the side.’” In behind-the-scenes footage that was released, we see Cage testing out a Superman suit that looks neither like the classic costume nor the garish one proposed by Warner Bros.
Ultimately, due to a lack of a cohesive creative vision, meddling from the studios, and perhaps a general sense of apathy towards the project, Superman Lives was taken off the shelf. It taught filmmakers a lesson: even with bankable directors and Oscar-winning stars attached, a project was never safe. And, whilst it’s a shame we never got to see Burton/Cage’s take on the costumed hero, the history of the production makes for one hell of an interesting story.
Watch the trailer for The Death of Superman Lives below.
