Documentary About Canceled 'Superman' Movie Sheds Light on Filmmaking Process

15 Jul, 2015 By: John Latchem

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SAN DIEGO — Sometimes the films that don’t get made can have as much impact on Hollywood as the biggest blockbusters.

In the late 1990s, Warner Bros. was looking to revive its “Superman” franchise with a new film based on the famous “Death of Superman” comic book storyline from 1993. Titled Superman Lives, it would have been directed by Tim Burton and starred Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel. A young Kevin Smith even wrote an early draft of the screenplay.

The prospects of what could have been provided the impetus for the new documentary The Death of ‘Superman Lives’; What Happened?, available now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download at TDOSLWH.com. The film includes interviews with Burton, Smith, producer Jon Peters and others who were involved in the production.

“I’m very proud of the film that we made because it not only covers just the idea of what Superman Lives would have been, it covers the process of what it takes to make a Hollywood picture,” said director Jon Schnepp. “And the process actually of what it takes to make anything, the creative process, and how anything you actually see when you’re in a movie theater is almost by chance that you actually got to see it because there are so many things that are in the way of you every being able to see anything creatively.”

Tales of Superman Lives have become almost mythical. Fans who were familiar with the project knew only bits and pieces about it, primarily a lousy costume test photo with Cage in a bad-looking Superman suit, and whatever Smith would say about it during his speaking tours, when he would claim Peters insisted that Superman fight a giant spider.

Instead, the character wouldn’t return to the big screen until Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns in 2006.

“[That was] an homage to Richard Donner’s Superman, and ultimately I was bored with the film, and that made me look back to a Superman that I thought maybe would have been a little more entertaining,” Schnepp said. “It had Brainiac. It had more of a cosmic feel to it. it was covering the ‘Death of Superman’ comic book series. For me that just seemed like it could be interesting.”

Schnepp’s passion for gathering any Superman Lives information he could find prompted the suggestion he make a documentary.

“I’m a director of cartoon shows and television. I hadn’t made a documentary yet,” said Schnepp, who has worked on such shows as “The Venture Bros.,” “Metalocalypse” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” “And I thought, why not take a break from what I normally do? I’ve never taken the easy route with my career, so I figured this was a good risk to take.”

He used Kickstarter to raise enough money to finish the film, a process that turned out to be much more involved than originally conceived.

“When we started this process to where we finished it is a completely different film,” said producer Holly Payne. “We had multiple cuts throughout the process. Initially though we were talking to comic book artists and writers and getting their opinions and perspectives on the idea of the movie Superman Lives. Once we actually got Tim Burton, once we actually started to talk to the people who actually worked on the film, we realized we had to scrap a lot of that.”

“A lot of the people that we interviewed didn’t want to talk about it because they’ve been shamed by the people making fun of the film who don’t even know what the film was about,” Schnepp said.

Payne and Schnepp were in attendance at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International to promote the film and even sell copies of it from their booth on the show floor. The unused footage is part of more than eight hours of bonus materials available with the film.

Once he began to explore the aspects of the production, Schnepp said he realized that what most people knew about it were based on misconceptions.

“What I found out was nobody knew about this project,” Schnepp said. “The idea of it is what they knew. People judged the entire film by a Polaroid of Nicolas Cage in a bad early costume test.”

“It was truly a science-fiction cosmic fairy tale, taking the character of Superman that we’d all known for 60 years and putting a different spin on it,” Schnepp said. “Yet at the same time everything in that film is very Superman-esque. When you see the film, you see the final costume that they had, it looked just like Superman only it was flavored a little bit more with Tim Burton style.”

Schnepp said he was intrigued by Burton’s take on the character.

“A lot of the appeal of Tim Burton’s movies is dealing with that outsider alien feeling, and that’s exactly what the character of Superman needs in order for people like us to actually empathize with him,” Schnepp said.

Schnepp also said negative perceptions about the casting of Cage are based largely on his career since then.

“If Nicolas Cage had been Superman back in 1998, he would probably have avoided the entire meme craze that happened because his whole career would have changed entirely from that point on,” Schnepp said. “People would have been like, ‘once Nicolas cage took over as Superman I really started to love that character."

At the time of his casting as Superman, Cage had recently won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and had starred in several blockbuster action films such as The Rock and Con Air.

“I don’t want to call people idiots, but I will call people uninformed when they talk about Nicolas Cage because a lot of people understand him from National Treasure and that’s it. He’s an actor who isn’t afraid to take chances.”

“He was willing to take risks. The whole team was willing to take risks,” Payne said. “Except for Warner Bros. They had a string of bombs, and this was a $300 million picture, and they ultimately they were like, ‘nope, we can’t afford to take this risk.”

Potential funds for the Superman Lives budget were redirected into other projects, including the notorious Will Smith Western Wild Wild West.

Schnepp said one can only imagine how much Superman Lives would have impacted a superhero genre that is now thriving thanks to the likes of Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. attempts to launch its own cinematic universe.

“If [Superman Lives] got made, it would have been a turning point for comic book films,” Schnepp said. “It was like a year before even X-Men came out. And this film would have spawned a series of Superman sequels. And probably Justice League would have happened in 2003 or ’04. It would have changed everything.”

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