After I was however a humble Warner Bros. Studio tour information in 2012, the whole division was gifted a uncommon deal with: A visit to the studio archives. Shuttled to a nondescript airport hangar, we toured probably the most treasured of WB artifacts, an elite few of which rotate on show on the lot’s museum.
The constructing resembled the warehouse on the finish of “Raiders of the Misplaced Ark,” with rows and rows of boxed and filed treasures. My eyes darted furiously as if trying to find the covenant. Drawers had been labeled with legendary names: “Bette Davis” and “Errol Flynn.” A refrigerated room held a trove of “Gremlins.” We had been informed a bundle of partitions was Monica’s condo from “Buddies.” A room was devoted simply to autos (“image automobiles”), from Batmobiles to the Argo vessel — no, not that “Argo” — the one from the 1979 Jack the Ripper time journey journey “Time After Time.”
Probably the most intriguing merchandise was saved in a crate, which to our luck was open, with its contents standing tall. On a model was a barely worn purple and blue outfit, leading edge in that ’90s punk model. Our information knowledgeable us that it was prototype Nicolas Cage go well with from the 1998 Tim Burton “Superman Lives” film… a movie, after all, that by no means occurred.
A couple of years later in 2015, I had an opportunity to see a screening of “The Loss of life of Superman Lives: What Occurred?” on the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. This glorious documentary, directed by the late Jon Schnepp, was a real fan expertise — not that I’m a rabid fan, however when one thing is made with the form of love that specific doc was, it’s robust to not catch the passion.
It’s a film about an aborted film that’s value revisiting, or visiting for the primary time, and it’s at present out there on YouTube. By means of idea artwork, exhaustive interviews with the entire main gamers (minus Cage, however together with Burton, costume designer Colleen Atwood, and the primary draft script author Kevin Smith), and behind-the-scenes check footage, Schnepp was in a position to craft a fairly stellar illustration of what a Burton-directed Superman may need felt like. On the finish, too, it manages to make even probably the most skeptical of viewers go, “Nicely… perhaps…” because it flashes a fairly putting picture of Cage in what’s (I imagine) the go well with I noticed withering contained in the archives. His final costume assessments, by the way in which, had been shot the day they pulled the plug on the film. It was that near stepping into entrance of the cameras.
Cage would finally have a really fast cameo as one among a multiverse of Supermen in 2023’s “The Flash.” In a later interview, he stated he solely spent three hours on set for that movie, starring Ezra Miller because the title character. “After I went to [see] the image, it was me combating a large spider. I didn’t try this. That was not what I did,” he defined to Yahoo! Leisure. “I don’t suppose it was [created by] AI. I do know Tim [Burton] is upset about AI, as I’m. It was CGI, OK, in order that they may de-age me, and I’m combating a spider. I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what occurred there.”
Burton has by no means had an opportunity to even briefly revisit the character, one thing he stated he had regrets over in a 2023 BFI interview. “If you work that lengthy on a venture and it doesn’t occur, it impacts you for the remainder of your life,” he stated. “Since you get enthusiastic about issues, and every factor is an unknown journey, and it wasn’t there but. But it surely’s a type of experiences that by no means leaves you, somewhat bit.”
Whereas I can’t relate the behind-the-scenes drama to the extent that “The Loss of life of Superman Lives” is in a position, suffice to say that anybody curious sufficient to observe or do a deep dive on the varied scripts and smattering of artifacts that stay from the manufacturing (one idea even ended up within the film “Wild Wild West“) will stroll away with a robust impression — notably of producer Jon Peters, who would finally wind up producing “Superman Returns.”
Among the many would-be movie’s stranger points — or a minimum of issues that sound unusual looking back — are large Brainiac spiders, proposed “Superman” basketball shorts, and a power-regenerating go well with. Not all of this might’ve occurred, however geez would it not have been one thing.
I couldn’t take pictures on the fateful day I noticed the Nicolas Cage go well with, however it lives on in my reminiscence. And one way or the other that reminiscence — faint and vague — may surpass something Tim Burton may need been in a position to craft.
Take a watch of the doc when you’ve got some free time.
