Alkanan
Sakura's Bank Manager
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2002
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I took this from a post on the superherohype.com boards but its a great read (albeit, a long one!) and its definitely a must for any Supes comic/movie fans.
From: http://www.x-human.net/superman_5.shtml
Superman: The Man of Steel (Development Hell / 2006) [Last Updated: 02/13/04]
Producer / (ILLITERATE! YUP): Jon Peters
The whole thing started in 1987. The Israeli producing team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (who were cousins, by the way) had bought the film rights to Superman from Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the obnoxious father-son duo who made the first three films. WB gave Golan and Globus’ production company Cannon Films $40 million bucks to make Superman IV, and Golan Globus took the money and spent it all on their other pictures. They only spent $17 million on Superman IV, chopping out key plot sequences and gutting the FX in order to keep the costs down. Anyway, Superman IV bombed because of the hack job Golan-Globus did on it, but since they still had the rights to Superman, they decided to make a fifth film for release in 1989, with Captain America (the one with Matt Salinger and Ronny Cox) director Albert Pyun at the helm. They also planned to reuse all the edited material from Superman IV and to recast Superman with another actor (their antics on IV left Reeve outraged with them). However, Cannon fell on hard times and Golan left to make his own company, 21st Century Films (which went under in the early ‘90s), and the rights to Superman reverted back to the Salkinds. This is when Superboy was in full swing on TV, and the Salkinds decided to restart the Superman film series using Superboy as the prequel. Hence, Superman comic scribe and his Superboy writing partner Mark Jones were drafted to write a script pitting Superman against Brainiac in a story set in the bottled city of Kandor. Under the working title Superman: The New Movie, this film was to have been released in 1994, with Superboy star Gerard Christopher taking over for Reeve as Superman.
Well, 1993 rolled around, and WB bought all the non-comics rights to Superman lock, stock, and barrel. WB forced the Salkinds to pull Superboy from the airwaves completely so as not to interfere with the planned Lois & Clark series (which Gerard Christopher auditioned for, and was turned down because he’d played Superboy-that’s how Dean Cain got the part), and scrapped the Bates/Jones script. Deciding to base the movie on the "death and return" story from the comic books (they figured that the big sales figures the story racked up would translate into box office success), WB turned the project over to their pet producer Jon Peters, an illiterate, abusive, womanizer (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not-this is all true, every word of it) who got his start as Barbra Streisand’s hairdresser/lover and produced the Tim Burton Batman films. Peters, who hates the classic Superman in every way imaginable, set out to reinvent Superman in the "sex, killing, rock & roll, and whatever movie was a hit last weekend" style that all of his movies are based in. So he hired Jonathan Lemkin to write the script. 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. Lemkin’s script-which even he proudly boasted was campy and silly-was scrapped because WB thought it was too similar to Batman Forever. So Peters hired porn veteran Gregory Poirer-who scripted Peters’ Rosewood-to start over. Poirer’s script had an angst-ridden Superman visiting a shrink in order to deal with his feeling of being an outsider and a freak by virtue of his alien heritage, and being killed by a Doomsday who bled kryptonite, the Silver Banshee, and the Parasite. WB liked the script, but when Kevin Smith was offered to be a consultant on the film, he blasted the script for its lack of respect for the source material. He made such a convincing case that WB hired him to write the film.
And this is where things got really ugly. Peters demanded that Superman be stripped of his red and blue suit, arguing that the suit was "too pink, too faggy." So Smith stuck Superman in the black and silver suit from the "death of" story. 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 portrayed 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 them 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, arguing that the movie needed a cuddly Chewbacca character who 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.) When all was said and done, Smith’s script was severely compromised by the time it came to its second draft, but WB liked it enough to give it the green-light. When it came time to cast Superman, Peters wanted to cast Sean Penn, because he "has the eyes of a killer and the charisma of a caged animal," per his performance in Dead Man Walking. But when Nicolas Cage offered his services as either Luthor or Brainiac, Smith pleaded with WB to cast Cage as Superman, feeling that Cage had the gravitas to pull the role off. Peters agreed, for totally different reasons. "Being an outsider and feeling like we don’t belong is the essence of Superman," Peters boasted, saying that Cage could play up the alien side of Supes. Smith tried to get his friend Robert Rodriguez to direct the film, but Peters and WB saw the film as a vehicle for Tim Burton, who they hired shortly after Cage. Burton, having been given almost total creative control, hated Smith’s script because it was too faithful to the comics (Burton doesn’t read comics, and he always brags about it). So he fired Smith and trashed his script, hiring his Batman Returns crony Wesley Strick to recreate Superman per Burton’s vision.
Continued in the next post...
From: http://www.x-human.net/superman_5.shtml
Superman: The Man of Steel (Development Hell / 2006) [Last Updated: 02/13/04]
Producer / (ILLITERATE! YUP): Jon Peters
The whole thing started in 1987. The Israeli producing team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (who were cousins, by the way) had bought the film rights to Superman from Alexander and Ilya Salkind, the obnoxious father-son duo who made the first three films. WB gave Golan and Globus’ production company Cannon Films $40 million bucks to make Superman IV, and Golan Globus took the money and spent it all on their other pictures. They only spent $17 million on Superman IV, chopping out key plot sequences and gutting the FX in order to keep the costs down. Anyway, Superman IV bombed because of the hack job Golan-Globus did on it, but since they still had the rights to Superman, they decided to make a fifth film for release in 1989, with Captain America (the one with Matt Salinger and Ronny Cox) director Albert Pyun at the helm. They also planned to reuse all the edited material from Superman IV and to recast Superman with another actor (their antics on IV left Reeve outraged with them). However, Cannon fell on hard times and Golan left to make his own company, 21st Century Films (which went under in the early ‘90s), and the rights to Superman reverted back to the Salkinds. This is when Superboy was in full swing on TV, and the Salkinds decided to restart the Superman film series using Superboy as the prequel. Hence, Superman comic scribe and his Superboy writing partner Mark Jones were drafted to write a script pitting Superman against Brainiac in a story set in the bottled city of Kandor. Under the working title Superman: The New Movie, this film was to have been released in 1994, with Superboy star Gerard Christopher taking over for Reeve as Superman.
Well, 1993 rolled around, and WB bought all the non-comics rights to Superman lock, stock, and barrel. WB forced the Salkinds to pull Superboy from the airwaves completely so as not to interfere with the planned Lois & Clark series (which Gerard Christopher auditioned for, and was turned down because he’d played Superboy-that’s how Dean Cain got the part), and scrapped the Bates/Jones script. Deciding to base the movie on the "death and return" story from the comic books (they figured that the big sales figures the story racked up would translate into box office success), WB turned the project over to their pet producer Jon Peters, an illiterate, abusive, womanizer (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not-this is all true, every word of it) who got his start as Barbra Streisand’s hairdresser/lover and produced the Tim Burton Batman films. Peters, who hates the classic Superman in every way imaginable, set out to reinvent Superman in the "sex, killing, rock & roll, and whatever movie was a hit last weekend" style that all of his movies are based in. So he hired Jonathan Lemkin to write the script. 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. Lemkin’s script-which even he proudly boasted was campy and silly-was scrapped because WB thought it was too similar to Batman Forever. So Peters hired porn veteran Gregory Poirer-who scripted Peters’ Rosewood-to start over. Poirer’s script had an angst-ridden Superman visiting a shrink in order to deal with his feeling of being an outsider and a freak by virtue of his alien heritage, and being killed by a Doomsday who bled kryptonite, the Silver Banshee, and the Parasite. WB liked the script, but when Kevin Smith was offered to be a consultant on the film, he blasted the script for its lack of respect for the source material. He made such a convincing case that WB hired him to write the film.
And this is where things got really ugly. Peters demanded that Superman be stripped of his red and blue suit, arguing that the suit was "too pink, too faggy." So Smith stuck Superman in the black and silver suit from the "death of" story. 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 portrayed 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 them 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, arguing that the movie needed a cuddly Chewbacca character who 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.) When all was said and done, Smith’s script was severely compromised by the time it came to its second draft, but WB liked it enough to give it the green-light. When it came time to cast Superman, Peters wanted to cast Sean Penn, because he "has the eyes of a killer and the charisma of a caged animal," per his performance in Dead Man Walking. But when Nicolas Cage offered his services as either Luthor or Brainiac, Smith pleaded with WB to cast Cage as Superman, feeling that Cage had the gravitas to pull the role off. Peters agreed, for totally different reasons. "Being an outsider and feeling like we don’t belong is the essence of Superman," Peters boasted, saying that Cage could play up the alien side of Supes. Smith tried to get his friend Robert Rodriguez to direct the film, but Peters and WB saw the film as a vehicle for Tim Burton, who they hired shortly after Cage. Burton, having been given almost total creative control, hated Smith’s script because it was too faithful to the comics (Burton doesn’t read comics, and he always brags about it). So he fired Smith and trashed his script, hiring his Batman Returns crony Wesley Strick to recreate Superman per Burton’s vision.
Continued in the next post...
Also for those Kevin Smith fans: You can see him explain his side of the Superman script fiasco on the 2 DVD set: An Evening w/ Kevin Smith. Its a riot. As far as Burton goes, its Burtons Way or the Highway and thats his greatest shortcomming. He may have done well w/ the 1st too batmans but i don't praise him much beyond that.
