So... have you ever heard of that Tim Burton Superman Movie?

You know, the one with Nicholas Cage as Superman and Sandra Bullock as Lois Lane?

With the big epic spider fight at the end?

No?

Well most people haven't either, but a documentary has been made that tells the story of what could have been.

And I just saw it. And you know what? It could have been awesome. But you could not tell by the (until recently) only picture on Nick Cage in the Sups costume.




If you are a movie buff and want to dig into the creative process of making a movie like this, you owe yourself at least a watch. I saw it recently on Showtime.



And if you have not seen this, you should hear Kevin's Smith account of his involvement while he was still attached as a script writer for this movie.

Yeah, I've heard about it before. Mainly I'm soooo glad we never got Nic as Superman. Especially if he was going to look like that.

That's why the production budget for "Superman Returns" was so fricking huge. The money spent on the Tim Burton project was added onto the budget for the Bryan Singer film.

That producer was responsible for Smallville, where he got his Superman that didn't fly.

He was also responsible for Wild Wild West, where he got his giant spider fight.

That producer sucked, although Smallville was still successful despite that.




The Jedi Master

If you watch the documentary, you can see they fixed the suit, and would not have looked that bad.





He also had developed a more complex version of the Kent/Kal-El duality that I think would have worked great.


You can still argue that Cage did not seem to fit the role, but this producer was also the same guy who thought Michael Keaton was a good Batman because he had "the eyes of a killer", and Batman ended up working.

I remember at the time that pretty much everyone in Hollywood and fans alike were quite shocked about Keaton being cast as Batman. At the time Keaton was really only known for comedies.

The suit still looks bad

Superman is damn hard to pull off, he's more bland than aquaman.

No doubt the suit could be fixed, but Cage just wouldn't be right. Physically he could pull it off, much better than Keaton did, but he still wasn't right IMO. At least Depp wasn't up for the role though.

I saw part of that movie on cable - it did sound interesting, but I am not sure how well it would have worked.

I don't think Nic as Superman would have worked but Sandra Bullock as Lois Lane, especially at that time, would have worked for me.


Wheels

Christopher Reeve will always be THE Superman imho.

Superman is one thing, but Cage would've sucked as Clark Kent. He would've been...Clark Cage. Alternately whispering and shouting at people just isn't Clark.



The Jedi Master

It could have been worse. First choice to play Superman in Burton's movie was frikkin' Sean Penn .


And I agree on Reeve's performance being the image cinema Superman should be modeled from.

I would love to see a "Kevin Smith" written, directed, and produced Superman or a Batman movie. That would be so cool.

I don't know, I remember him talking about how that would consist of them standing around talking before and after the fights, with the fights happening off-screen.



The Jedi Master

George Reeves did a good job for his era.


Wheels