An oral history of the launchpad abortion that would’ve asked us to believe Nic Cage can fly. Superman Lives was such a bizarre near-production, so stuffed with intrinsically weird players and ideas, that I’m not sure if I’m glad it was canceled or disappointed to have been denied the spectacle. In the late ‘90s, it came awfully close to reality. Cabinets’ worth of concept art, screen tests, casting ideas and shooting scripts were already finished and a release date had been penciled into the studio’s schedule for the summer of ’98. Then... it all fell apart, scuttling years of work and redirecting its capital to another disastrous flop: Will Smith’s Wild Wild West.
Here we shadow Jon Schnepp, nerd culture aficionado, as he sifts through old assets and chats with those responsible. Although this documentary was funded through Kickstarter and is obviously a very low-budget production, its access is all we could’ve asked for. Schnepp sits down with everyone from studio execs to comic book writers, even spending a puzzling afternoon with the eccentric Tim Burton (filmed in the would-be director’s creepy, echoey attic space), providing us with a very thorough (if not cohesive) idea of where the film was trying to go. The artwork, at least, is excellent. Many members of this team went on to high-profile gigs elsewhere in Hollywood, and it’s fascinating to enjoy this peek into their creative processes. The most entertaining bits, though, involve an indirect back-and-forth between screenwriter Kevin Smith, who’s made a nice secondary career of shit-talking producer Jon Peters in his comedy specials, and Peters himself. Actually, Peters is mesmerizing even when he isn’t trying to justify his lust for giant spiders; a living embodiment of the snobby, vapid, fake-ass producer stereotype, he embraces every last one of his insane eccentricities. Is this guy for real? I’d love to hear a few more lies about his days as a young, street-fighting hairdresser.
Surprisingly, for a film that was never actually realized, there’s probably too much material to cover and the documentary seems reluctant to overlook anything. So it goes long, and Schnepp indulges in a bit of ego, framing himself into the picture and nodding like a bobblehead during each answer. I appreciated the insight, enjoyed the lunacy of it all, but was ready to wash my hands thirty minutes before the closing credits.
Two thoughts - Jon Peters is mental and don't want to call anyone a liar but it's hard to believe a word he says considering Peters' history with a certain sexual harassment case that happened during production of Superman Returns and the fact that everyone else has similar stories how disruptive he was ("One time he kissed me full on the lips" - Tim Burton).
Secondly I hate that the director inserted himself into the footage - it'd come across more professional endeavour had he stopped behind the camera; he certainly doesn't bring anything to proceedings.
Like everyone says - Michael Keaton wasn't everyone's choice for Bats but that turned out fine. I would love to have seen this. Let's face it, even when Cage's films are car crashes they are worth watching (Wicker Man).
The documentary itself is fairly solid but a little long.
The film it looks at looks like a car crash luckily avoided!
It had a few year period where the film might have been made but looking at the climate of the last 20 years, thank god it wasn't.
And the Marvel years have changed superhero movies completely that anything else - especially DC - is hammered for being different.
If this film had been made, it wouldn't be looked at in good terms now - of that I am sure.
6.5/10 for the docu
3/10 for the movie ideas
The documentary itself is fairly solid but a little long.
The film it looks at looks like a car crash luckily avoided!
It had a few year period where the film might have been made but looking at the climate of the last 20 years, thank god it wasn't.
And the Marvel years have changed superhero movies completely that anything else - especially DC - is hammered for being different.
If this film had been made, it wouldn't be looked at in good terms now - of that I am sure.
6.5/10 for the docu
3/10 for the movie ideas
Seeing this documentary enables the viewer to understand the amount of work that goes into making a movie. Superman Lives never made it to the screen due to a frightened studio. Last year's Fantastic Four did make it to the screen and hopefully one day we will have a documentary such as this one that explores the behind the scenes story as to how the movie turned out so badly.
Tim Burton's Superman film could have been amazing. Or it could have been awful. We will never know. Nobody sets out to make a bad film, unless their name is Uwe Boll so it is sad to see the creative talent behind the cancelled Superman film talk about their vision and how they saw the movie crumble.
Review by drqshadowBlockedParent2020-01-30T20:04:21Z
The infamous bomb to end all bombs, a doomed effort to relaunch the Superman franchise in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic Batman and Robin, never made it to principal photography. Ever since it was unceremoniously dumped back in 1998, the film's been a secretive slab of buried pop trivia and this documentary, through interviews with virtually every guilty party, attempts to uncover what might have been.
Facepalm-worthy mistakes abound, from overzealous producers with absurd requests to tripped-out directors with no affinity for the character to one of the single worst casting decisions in recent memory. There's no two ways about it: this was going to be a launchpad disaster, even worse than the slim shreds of leaked information may have led us to believe.
The story of its abortion is fascinating, too, in the same way a slow-motion replay of a fatal F-1 crash might be. The documentary belabors many points, though, needlessly bloating its runtime, and the director/moderator is incessantly forced into most shots, which I found grating. As a slideshow of concept art and talking heads recollecting (often, stunningly, with fondness) the mistakes they were never given the chance to make, it provides a short-lived interest. The full duration is something of a chore to push through, however, and it really could've done with some critical editing before release.