Nicolas Cage’s unfulfilled Superman The film remains one of Hollywood’s most popular “what if?” projects. Director Tim Burton looks back at the film that changed the course of Superman Franchise.
Director Tim Burton confirms Superman lives faced a number of production challenges. In an interview with Variety, he compared his experience to the search for the Golden Fleece from Greek legends. “There are always these Jason and the Argonauts-like journey that everyone goes through to make a film,” he explained.I’ve worked on a few films that didn’t get made after years of work, and that’s pretty traumatic.. I just try to focus on the things I care about and block out all the noise around it.” Burton reflected on this after saying he wasn’t interested in making another superhero movie at the moment.
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Superman lives was based on a story by Kevin Smith (Employee) to producer Jon Peters. Burton was hired after director Robert Rodriguez (From dusk to dawn) declined due to his commitment to The Faculty. Superman lives could have featured an all-star ensemble; Kevin Spacey was suggested for the role of Lex Luthor, Chris Rock was cast as Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane was a neck-and-neck between Juliann Moore, Courtney Cox, and Sandra Bullock. As his screen tests confirmed, Nicolas Cage was set to play Superman/Clark Kent. Superman lives began pre-production in 1997 but was delayed by script rewrites; Warner Bros. shelved the film in 1998 for financial reasons. Burton left the film to direct Sleepy Hollow.
Tim Burton’s Batman deviates from the clichés of superhero films
Burton cited creative differences with Peters and Warner Bros. as the main reasons for his exit from the project. “I basically wasted a year,” he said (according to the Boston Herald). “A year is a long time to work with someone you don’t really want to work with.” He has Batman Returns at the time and almost made a third part. He noted how his experiences during the production of 1989 Batman was pleasant in comparison. “I was lucky because the word ‘franchise’ didn’t exist back then,” he continued.Batman felt a little experimental at the time. … It was a departure from the perception (of a superhero movie). So you didn’t get that kind of studio feedback, and being in England, it was even further away from that. We could really just focus on the movie and not really have to think about the things that they think about today before you even make it.”
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Superhero movies have provided some long overdue fan service in recent years. DC and Marvel Studios’ adoption of multiverse storylines expanded the landscape and allowed for the exploration of wild and alternate realities. This also allowed for multiple iterations of the same character to coexist, creating scenes like The Flashs climactic sequence was a possibility. In that scene, Barry Allen (played by Ezra Miller) traveled back in time to reverse events, but caused an implosion of the multiverse in the process. This offered a glimpse of several versions of DC superheroes, including a “cameo” appearance by Nicolas Cage in Man of Steel.
Burton’s latest film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuicewill be in theaters on September 6th.
Source: Variety
Superman
- Created by
- Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster
- First TV show
- Superman
- TV show(s)
- Superman, Smallville, Superman & Lois, Superman: The Animated Series, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
