Dan Gilroy, the screenwriter behind the Nicolas Cage and Tim Burton’s version of Superman reveals details behind the failed production.
The Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage Superman movie was expected to hit theaters in the 1990s. But, the movie was later scrapped leaving behind rumors, and speculation as to why the movie was canceled. Twenty years later, producers are unveiling a documentary behind the failed Superman.
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New information about what the movie might have done to Superman, suggests that the world might have been better off without the movie ever being made. “I was very much taken by Tim’s approach, which was that Kal-El was not told by Jor-El, before he got put in the little spaceship, who he was or where he came from,” Gilroy told IndieWire about the project. “So poor little Kal-El, when he winds up on earth, he has no freaking idea where he came from. His biggest fear is that he’s an alien.”
“Our Superman was in therapy at the beginning of the film,” he went on, saying this his relationship with Lois Lane is in trouble because “he can’t commit because he doesn’t know who he is or what is going on with him. He’s hoping that he has some physiological condition that gives him these powers but that he’s still human. It becomes very apparent, though, early in the script, when Lex Luthor uncovers the remnants of the spacecraft, he suddenly realizes – ‘Oh my god, I’m an alien.’ It was all about the psychological trauma of it. I loved it.”
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This version of Superman is very much a different kind of superhero than anyone could have ever expected. It is more reminiscent of the Dark Knight rather than Superman.
The movie didn’t happen, he suggests, because of the failure of the other Warner Bros. movies. “Every big movie that was coming out was bombing and failing,” he said. “When it came time to step up and bankroll our script, they didn’t have the financial wherewithal or desire.”
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Or, maybe the world was not ready for Nicolas Cage to play Clark Kent?
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