Studio Got Scared of Nic Cage's Superman Movie
 

ROFL

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...191455869.html

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Nicolas Cage insists his 'Superman Lives' 'would have been beautiful'


Before it died an ignoble death, Tim Burton‘s never-made ’90s blockbuster Superman Lives was poised to take the Man of Steel where no comic book movie had gone before. Burton freely adapted the film from the famous “Death of Superman” storyline, which saw the Kryptonian (played by longtime Superman fan, Nicolas Cage, who proved his devotion to the DC Comics icon by naming his son Kal-El) killed at the hands of the monstrous Doomsday followed by his eventual resurrection. But the filmmaker’s take on the Superman mythos proudly ignored comic book canon in both its narrative structure and visual style. “It would have been beautiful,” Cage tells Yahoo Movies at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the prolific actor’s latest film, the ultra-dark comedy Mom and Dad, premiered to rapturous applause amongst the midnight movie crowd. “Tim and I were about to get up to something really relevant.”

For years following the project’s demise, fans only had select glimpses of what the dynamic duo of Burton and Cage had in mind for Superman, which included a combined version of regular antagonists Lex Luthor and Braniac known as “Lexiac” and Kal-El drawing on Kryptonian life essence to restore his lost powers. But the floodgates opened with the arrival of Jon Schnepp’s 2015 documentary, The Death of ‘Superman Lives’: What Happened. Filled with never-before-seen concept art and behind-the-scenes footage and on-camera interviews with Burton, producer Jon Peters, and screenwriter Kevin Smith (who penned an earlier version of the script that Burton discarded), Schnepp’s film offers the most complete account of this uncompleted film, which ranks up there with Justice League: Mortal as one of the great “What if?” projects in the history of comic book cinema.
Nicolas Cage in Mom and Dad (Photo: Toronto International Film Festival)

One notable voice that isn’t featured in the documentary, though, is Cage’s. The actor declined to specify why he didn’t participate in The Death of “Superman Lives,” but did share some memories about the film’s origins. “They wanted Renny Harlin,” Cage reveals about the studio’s first choice of director. “Renny’s cool, I like Renny. But I said, ‘No, I need Tim Burton.’ Because Tim can make worlds. I wanted to see his Krypton.” And the images of Superman’s homeworld that Burton and his team of concept artists dreamed up delighted Cage to no end. “I saw what he was about to get up to. We were laughing looking at the drawings and the costumes.” Unfortunately, the imagery unnerved the executives at Warner Bros., whose confidence was further shaken by Burton’s high-profile 1996 sci-fi comedy flop, Mars Attacks! “They got scared,” Cage says. “They misunderstood Mars Attacks!, which is a great f–king movie, and got worried about Tim.”

Although Superman Lives never took flight, Cage is glad that fans are now able to see what might have been beyond the grainy images from an early costume test that leaked several years ago. “The Internet got some stupid pictures from the wardrobe — I don’t know how that got out. But you’ve seen the footage, so you know what I’m talking about. Tim’s Krypton was brilliant and genius. They missed out.”

Kevin Smith, to this day, has THE best anecdote ever about Superman Lives.

Kevin Smith is generally pretty irritating, but for about 18 months a decade and a half ago he was a master storyteller.

If I can find the YouTube, I'll post it. It is a ~20 minute masterpiece of deconstructing his involvement with this project.

Oh my goddddddd are you guys in for a treat.

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ROFL

Just finished the first video, and I can't stop laughing. Kevin Smith can tell a story, my goodness. ROFL

ROFL It's amazing.

lol, that was great!ROFL

Y'all need to watch "The Death of 'Superman Lives'"

It's the whole saga of that movie and Kevin Smith tells that story (though its cut throughout the documentary). John Peters offers his 'rebuttal' at points as well. It's damn entertaining.

I like Kevin Smith and will always have a soft spot for him because of Clerks. But at some point he did get a little bit of that 'way too cool to be here' vibe and wore thin on me.

I love Kevin Smith's story about Prince. If you have never seen it and you like some of his stories it is a must watch.

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Those Smith vids are great.

I will always believe John Peters was in the middle of some coke/mescaline binge to come up with the straight up dumb****ery he thought would be a great Supermam movie, and that's not even to mention having Nic Cage play him. Just all around WTF moments.

"But I didn't say that because I wanted the job"

LMAO

That would have been awesome. Nic Cage is a god damned American legend.

Awesome videos... damn good storyteller

I love that story every time I watch it. I still remember the first time I watched it and he mentioned WWW and my first thought was "that stupid ass spider" ROFL

It is good. I watched it a few months ago.

I know I LOOOOOVED them in my college years when I first caught them in syndication, but has anyone watched recently to know if Wild Wild West and Black Sheep Squadron hold up today as series?

so i thought www was for www.webcrawler.com which had a spider. Baas baaaa black sheep may hold up because it was based on real things. It isn't like Airwolf when string hides behind the moon the comes out of no where to block A tom chambers jump shot

I watched the Black Sheep Squadron a few years ago and remember thinking that it looked pretty bad. The stock footage, especially when they would re-use it fairly frequently, sure didn't seem as badass as it did when I was a kid.

By contrast, 'The Flying Leathernecks'; a John Wayne flick bankrolled by Howard Hughes, still holds up pretty damn well.

I've watched WWW in recent months on either CoziTV or MeTV, can't remember which. I enjoyed it as much as when I was a kid.

BSS I grew tired of about midway through the first season on its first run when I was 10, in large part for the stock footage as previously mentioned, so I doubt I'd be much of a fan today.

Awesome videos.

Great story telling and great payoff.

Lol, great story with K. Smith.

If you guys like Smith's monologues, here's him breaking down Bruce Willis

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I'm not a huge fan of his work, but he's a helluva in-person storyteller.

Yeah, he's pretty much come to the same conclusion.

He's brutally honest that his movies, particularly nowadays, are for his own amusement and his podcasting and live shows are where his passion lies.

And man does he talk, . . . I mean, these clips from shows where he gives monologues to a paying audience are one thing, but he'll podcast about anything. His 'Smod'-iverse [named because he started podcasting with filmaking partner Scott Moser, S-M-odcasts . . . ] covers everything from getting Mewes sober [literally, so long as Mewes stayed clean Kevin would show up and podcast antics between the two of them], to him getting a clergy license and officiating marriages, to talking with childhood friends about antics growing up in Jersey, to gabbing about Hollywood news [Hollywood Babbleon], to just sitting with Moser in his home office, smoking a bowl and talking about life.

There was a point a few years back where he was participating in 12-15 hours of content a week.

Not all of it is gripping [and I haven't sampled a whole lot of it], but he always has his conversational style.

His reaction videos suck. Someone needs to tell him to film himself reacting on camera AS he watches whatever it is he's reacting to.

/nitpick rant

Totally agree, Bowser. WTF is the point.

Haha he did Joe Rogan's podcast. Another long talker. And my god it lasted ****ing forever.