Not too long ago, Kevin Smith opened up about whether or not he had any main regrets in his 30-plus years making films, and his reply was—expectedly—not making Superman Lives. Whereas the DC Universe is suffering from scrapped movie and tv initiatives, none are extra notorious. The unmade movie would have starred Nicolas Cage because the Man of Metal, and one of many candidates to direct was Robert Rodriguez. Notably, the movie suffered a whole lot of manufacturing setbacks, together with a number of modifications in directing and writing employees. This in the end affected Smith himself when new mission director Tim Burton selected Wesley Strick to switch him.
Almost three a long time later, Smith nonetheless speaks of Superman Lives as a terrific what-if. He defined: “If I could make anything that didn’t happen, happen, I think it would be that.” He then clarified that he felt this was largely “because [he] didn’t have the pressure of directing the movie” himself. Smith described the mix of his writing and Rodriguez’s directing as “a wonderful marriage of material.” The Dogma director heaped reward on Rodriguez, calling him “one of [his] generation’s greatest and absolutely-f*cking-on-point visionary action directors.” Smith additionally was not shy concerning the potential this movie had for his profession:
I ain’t saying that is the best script — however dialogue was sharp in that f*cking script. And this was pre-Avengers, you recognize, earlier than that turned the norm and stuff. So I’d have benefited, as a screenwriter man. “Hey, he wrote that!” It in all probability would have opened extra doorways or created extra alternatives. And people issues by no means occur in a silo, so I think about there would have been a pair Supermans, and, even when I did not write the subsequent two, you continue to get a style if it is based mostly in your script.
Moreover, Smith lamented that writing a movie for another person to direct would have been an fascinating change of tempo. He concluded: “All the pressure and responsibility would have been Robert’s, and I could have hung out on set, f*cking scooping it on the Internet. I don’t ask for much. Put me in the motherf*cker. Maybe I could have played Perry White or something like that. I was probably too young at that point. I could have played somebody.”
Indubitably, a Kevin Smith-Robert Rodriguez Superman movie would have been completely different from any big-screen adaptation of the character up to now. His script reportedly included Brainiac, Doomsday, and Lex Luthor in an adaptation of “The Death of Superman,” a narrative that will later be used within the DCEU. By the point Strick rewrote the script, a lot of Smith’s authentic concepts have been scrapped, together with his recommended casting. Each the previous and Burton finally departed the mission attributable to clashing with the studio, and it did not safe one other director.
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Whereas there may be much more to why Superman Lives did not pan out, and Smith had already been changed by the point it was scrapped, his feedback relating to his profession trajectory stay true. The filmmaker has a following amongst those that get pleasure from his model of stoner comedy and shared universes. Having written a Superman movie inevitably would have made him a extra mainstream screenwriter.
Courtesy of Vivien Killilea Getty Photographs for MultlHouse/PAL Public Relations
No matter not being made, Smith’s Superman Lives stays a captivating case of what may have been. He’d initially pitched a lineup of Ben Affleck as Clark Kent/Superman, Linda Fiorentino as Lois Lane, Jack Nicholson as Lex Luthor, Famke Janssen as Mercy Graves, John Mahoney as Perry White, and most bizarrely, Jason Mewes as Jimmy Olsen.
Nicolas Cage turned connected to the mission after Kevin Smith’s authentic solid was ideated.
Between Smith’s writing and Rodriguez’s directing, Superman Lives would have been memorable to say the least. Nonetheless, Smith has created a distinct segment fanbase for himself and appears content material, even praising the route James Gunn is taking Superman in for the DCU.
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Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
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Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Zachary Levi, Dwayne Johnson, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Sturdy, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett, Rosie Perez, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong, Ewan McGregor, Idris Elba, John Cena, Michael Keaton, George Clooney, Xolo Mariduena
