There was a moment in the early 90s that might have changed the super hero landscape forever. Tim Burton had just had a massive success with Batman and someone figured that if he could resurrect one hero, why not another?
Superman Lives, penned by Kevin Smith and a couple of others, starring Nicolas Cage as Superman was born.
I won't lie. I hated the idea when I heard about it back then and was quite happy that it never got made.
Decades later, a filmmaker named Jon Schnepp made a documentary called The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? that dug up an amazing amount of behind the scenes footage and painted the project in a different light than what I thought I knew about it.
Schnepp makes a decent case for the movie being something revolutionary and I almost buy it. I still dislike the idea of Cage as the Man of Steel, but Burton's take would have been interesting at the least.
Fast forward to today and I find that another filmmaker has put together a trailer for the movie that never was. It's based on what we saw in the documentary and has a definite Burton vibe. To my eye it's Superman living in Edward Scissorhands' world with a little Mars Attacks! thrown in.
I do love that it makes it totally clear that Lex Luthor really believes that he's the hero and that Superman is the threat. I've always said that great villains make great movies and the best villains believe they're the good guy.
Anyhow, here's a look at what a Superman movie might have been. I gotta say, the costume looks pretty great. I wonder if James Gunn has seen this?
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