Superman is one of the greatest fictional characters ever created, and after all these years, he still inspires hope in his fans. He has been played by a number of performers on the big and small screen alike, and at one point, none other than Nicolas Cage was going to play the character in a film directed by Tim Burton.

Titled Superman Lives, the film was going to do things differently than fans had seen before. Burton is known for doing things his way, and despite there being a decent amount of progress made before he hopped on board, once he took over, he decided to make the film all his own.

Let’s take a look at the failed Superman Lives movie that never saw the light of day.

It Was Originally Written By Kevin Smith

There are many moving pieces behind the scenes when making a movie, and every now and again, people from the industry open up and share their experiences. In the case of the cancelled Superman movie, Kevin Smith has opened up many times about his experience with Warner Bros. and his script for their film.

Smith didn’t have superhero movie experience, but he was a comic book fan and a sharp writer. Clearly, the studio knew what Smith could bring to the table, and the director wound up writing a few drafts of the proposed film. However, once Tim Burton signed on board to make the film, Smith’s version went by the wayside.

According to Smith, “The studio was happy with what I was doing. Then Tim Burton got involved, and when he signed his pay-or-play deal, he turned around and said he wanted to do his version of Superman. So who is Warner Bros. going back to? The guy who made Clerks, or the guy who made them half a billion dollars on Batman?”

With Burton on board, there were a number of changes that were made to the script, but the big baddie of the film remained the same. This particular villain would have made things quite interesting for the Man of Steel.

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Brainiac Was The Villain

Brainiac Krypton
Via comicvine.com

In what would have been an interesting turn of events, Brainiac was supposed to be the villain for Tim Burton’s failed Superman Lives project. Unlike a number of other Superman villains, Brainiac is one who has not gotten many chances to be featured in a live-action project. No, he is not as popular as Lex Luthor, but this would have changed things nicely for the fandom.

As we mentioned already, Brainiac was going to be the villain in Smith’s version, and even though Burton wanted to make things his own, it was clear that he and the studio were interested in bringing Brainiac to life. Details of the Burton version of the film can be found online, and these details really highlight all the finer workings of the film, including Superman losing his powers before defeating Brainiac.

Another version of the story also featured Lois Lane losing her life, and an early version saw Lois and Superman having a child who assumes the mantle of Superman. Needless to say, this film was not going to pull any punches or be afraid to bring something new to the table for the fans to see.

Naturally, Burton and Smith were tapping into specific source material to bring this movie to life, and the particular story that had a huge influence on this movie is one of the best DC stories ever penned.

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It Had Ties To ‘The Death Of Superman’

Death of Superman
Via denofgeek.com

All comic book fans know that The Death of Superman is one of the most famous DC stories of all time, and there were elements of this story that were going to be used in Superman Lives. In fact, the movie was going to feature Superman losing his life at one point, before making a triumphant return to help save the day. Elements of this famous comic story were used in the DCEU.

Superman Lives wound up getting far into the production process before getting axed by the studio. Burton was on board, as was Nicolas Cage, who was cast as the Man of Steel in the movie. It sounds like a bizarre pairing, but people initially doubted the pairing of Burton and Michael Keaton for Batman back in the 80s.

These days, Superman Lives continues to live on in infamy. Kevin Smith has talked at great length about his experience with the movie, and there is even an entire documentary dedicated to unwrapping everything that went into this movie never getting off the ground. The documentary is titled The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, and it is worth every single second of its runtime.

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Superman Lives could have been an interesting movie, but fans will always have to read about it and wonder what could have been.

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