Geek Talk

So I’m reading /. early today and saw a post on Superman V. Being the comic geek that I am I needed to check it out. The post links to this. A story about the decade long production hell that the Superman Movie has been in. Some really messed up stuff in this article that if it went to the screen it would be far worse than any other comic movie made… yes even catwoman. I’ll highlight some of my favorites.

Lemkin’s draft had Superman dying in battle with Doomsday, but managing to impregnate Lois as he’s dying by way of Immaculate Conception. Lois is killed off later in the story, but not before giving birth to a baby who grows 21 years in three weeks’ time, and takes over as the new Superman and saves the universe from Armageddon.

Umm… ok. Jesus Superman?

First off, Smith was taken aback when Peters asked him, in all sincerity, “‘Kal-El’? Who’s this ‘Kal-El’ guy you keep mentioning in the script?” Then the insanity really started to take over. Peters demanded that Superman be stripped of his red and blue suit, arguing that the suit was “too pink, too f@ggy.” WB also demanded that Superman undergo a costume change, even ordering Smith to describe the soon-to-be-trashed red and blue duds as being “‘90s-style.” So Smith was forced to have Superman ditch his red and blues (which he grudgingly deemed “‘90s-style”) early on in the script and switch over to the black and silver suit from the “death of” story as his permanent gear (ironically mirroring Poirier’s earlier script). Peters also hated the FX in the 1978 Superman film with Chris Reeve, so he wanted to get rid of Superman’s ability to fly. So Smith tried to get around this by portraying Superman as a red blur while in flight, creating a sonic boom every time he took off (he took this from The Dark Knight Returns). Peters then told Smith to have Brainiac fight polar bears at the Fortress of Solitude, demanding that the film be wall-to-wall action. Smith thought it was a stupid idea, so Peters said, “Then have Brainiac fight Superman’s bodyguards!” Smith responded, “Why the hell would Superman need bodyguards?” Peters wouldn’t let up, so Smith caved in and had Brainiac fight the polar bears. Then Peters demanded that Brainiac give Luthor a hostile space dog as a gift, arguing that the movie needed a cuddly Chewbacca character that could be turned into a toy. Then, after watching Chasing Amy, Peters liked the gay black character in the film so much that he ordered Smith to make Brainiac’s robot servant L-Ron gay, asserting that the film needed a gay R2-D2 with attitude. Then Peters demanded that Superman fight a huge spider at the end of the film, which Smith refused to do—he used a “Thanagarian Snare Beast” instead. (However, Peters did manage to recycle his spider idea and use it in Wild Wild West.)

Woah woah woah! No flight?!? No cape? No Blue tights? And polar bear fights? Don’t worry it gets worse…

Burton hated the flying FX in the 1978 film, too, so he didn’t want Superman to fly. Instead, he put Superman in a Supermobile.
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Meanwhile, Jon Peters saw a group of Shaolin monks performing on Jay Leno, and liked them so much that he tried to get them cast in the film. He also tried to have the Eradicator—now renamed “K” by Burton (to be voiced by Jack Nicholson, who had been previously rumored to play Luthor) and reinvented as a shapeshifting robotic Alfred to Superman’s gadget-dependent Batman (swear to God, I’m not kidding; Burton and Peters’ Superman was to be reliant on Batman-esque Kryptonian gadgets and technology, as reported by Superman CINEMA and Superman-V.com)—tote around an “Eradicator Stick,” because he saw visions of posters and toys based on it. And the Eradicator wasn’t the only computerized character to be radically reconceived; Burton planned to end the film with Luthor and Brainiac amalgamating to become a single villain called either “Luthinac” or “Lexiac”. (The concept art by Pete Von Scholly, shown at the Superman V.com site, depicted “Lexiac” as a gigantic slug-like creature with Luthor’s face.)

So Tim Burton wanted to make Superman more like Batman? A Super Mobile? Kyptonian Gadgets?! What are these people smoking?!

Ok you get to read the rest, don’t worry its much worse. The mindnumbing part is that in 2002 they still had an AWFUL script that was headed to pre-production. Read up on it, its a VERY long post/story but really entertaining. And will make the movie release 100000 times better than what they had planned.