By Erin Free & Lee Zachariah
TIM BURTON: SUPERMAN LIVES
Tim Burton’s efforts to get a Superman film on screen in the 1990s are now the stuff of legend. Renowned comic book geek and writer/director, Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Zack And Miri Make A Porno), had written a script entitled Superman Lives (which included various ridiculous plot points enforced by producer, Jon Peters, which Smith hilariously discusses on his An Evening With Kevin Smith spoken word DVD), and Burton was keen to make it happen. In what could have been the role of a lifetime, renowned comic book nut, Nicolas Cage (who later called his son Kal-El, Superman’s Krypton birth name), signed on to play The Man Of Steel, with various other casting rumours (Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, Chris Rock as Jimmy Olsen, Tim Allen as Brainiac, Courteney Cox as Lois Lane, and Michael Keaton as a possibly guest starring Batman) whirling through the media with varying degrees of accuracy. With Burton on board, screenwriter, Wesley Strick (Cape Fear), was brought in to rework the script, which sparked off a long-standing feud between the ever-mouthy Kevin Smith and his once-intended director. Construction, meanwhile, was started on the film’s sets and costumes. Tensions between Burton and seemingly unhinged producer, Jon Peters (who started in the business as Barbra Streisand’s hairdresser!), started to escalate, however, and the project began to teeter. The film’s skyrocketing budget forced studio Warner Bros. to put the film on hold, and Burton left to direct Sleepy Hollow. $30 million was rumoured to have been spent on the dead-in-the-water film, which would eventually twist and morph into Bryan Singer’s 2006 film, Superman Returns. “I basically wasted a year,” Tim Burton sighed of the whole ugly affair, which is captured in the documentary, The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened?
JOSS WHEDON: WONDER WOMAN
Though one of DC Comics’ top tier characters, Wonder Woman is also one of the publishing house’s most poorly served figures, enduring a history of sub-par writing in print form, and abject neglect on the big screen. That, however, has well and truly changed with the arrival of Israeli-born actress, Gal Gadot (Fast & Furious), as Wonder Woman in Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel sequel, Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, and her own impending stand-alone film, which is in production right now. It’s been a long road getting the crime-fighting Amazon to the big screen, with the likes of George Miller (as part of his failed Justice League movie – see below – where the character was to be played by Aussie model, Megan Gale) and Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive) trying to make it happen. But the most fevered failed proponent of the character is undoubtedly one-time Marvel Studios overseer, Joss Whedon (The Avengers), who was once tapped by Warners to bring Wonder Woman to the screen. When FilmInk interviewed the director upon the release of his sci-fi adventure, Serenity, in 2005, he was in the thick of putting together the screenplay for his hoped-for big screen take on the iconic DC Comics character. “I’m going to have to be a bit vague at the moment,” Whedon replied when FilmInk asked him about Wonder Woman. “I’m not being coy; I just haven’t written much. It’s a great story, though. There’s just no place in the world for this woman, and she’s constantly fascinated as to why we’re so compromised as a species. For a misanthrope like me, that’s an inspiration: she believes, and she’s pure and totally uncompromising. She will have a lasso of truth. For her, it’s absolutely essential. She will not, however, have star-spangled panties.” Warners, however, ultimately rejected Whedon’s Wonder Woman script. “They never really told me what the problem was,” the producer/writer/director later told FilmInk. “I was told, ‘They don’t like it.’ That was all that I ever heard.”
DARREN ARONOFSKY: BATMAN
The years between Joel Schumacher’s dire Batman & Robin and Christopher Nolan’s regenerative Batman Begins were not kind to Gotham’s Caped Crusader. Warner Bros. flirted with a number of projects that varied greatly in tone. Mark Protosevich’s Batman Triumphant script featured Batman and Robin battling the evil force that is Joel Schumacher…sorry, the evil force that is The Scarecrow. Harley Quinn, now The Joker’s daughter, appeared as the secondary villain. This script was thrown out in favour of Batman: DarKnight (yes, the K is a capital). Written by Lee Shapiro and Stephen Wise, it featured Scarecrow and Man-Bat, and was also to be directed by Schumacher. These films, as well as a proposed live-action adaptation of the futuristic cartoon Batman Beyond, were ditched in favour of a new direction for the franchise: Warner Bros. approached indie wunderkind, Darren Aronofsky, in 1998, when he was hot off his debut film, pi. Aronofsky’s first idea was an adaptation of Frank Miller’s definitive graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns, and he envisioned Clint Eastwood as an aged Bruce Wayne. Warners loved the idea, but Aronofsky then decided that he’d rather adapt Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One alongside Miller himself. Aronofsky began approaching actors, including eventual Batman, Christian Bale. Warner Bros. decided that the project was too violent, and all parties moved on. The studio sought Batman pitches from Joss Whedon and The Wachowski Brothers, and eventually went with Christopher Nolan’s vision. Nolan’s Batman Begins, undeniably inspired by Miller’s Batman: Year One comic, might not have happened had Aronofsky not paved the way. “I want to bring an independent guerrilla flavour to Batman,” he told Variety during pre-production. “It’s one of the few scripts that I could go out tomorrow and shoot – it’s that smart.”
GEORGE MILLER: JUSTICE LEAGUE IMMORTAL
Though it’s seemingly on song now with Man Of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, and a host of upcoming projects including Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. had long struggled with how to connect its enormous DC Comics back catalogue in the same way that Marvel Studios has done with their properties. With 2006’s Superman Returns and 2011’s Green Lantern not meeting expectations, Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise establishing a real-world style that would not mesh with super powered beings, and failed attempts at films featuring Wonder Woman and The Flash, the cinematic world of DC was not locking together effectively until recently. Despite this, Warner Bros. jumped into a Justice League movie in the mid-2000s, which would team together DC’s biggest superheroes. Set to incongruously run alongside Nolan’s Batman films, the project seemed ill-advised, but the shining ray of hope was director, George Miller (Mad Max, Happy Feet), whose presence eased many fears. An unusual cast, however, began falling into place: Armie Hammer as Batman, D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Adam Brody as The Flash, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Common as Green Lantern, Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman, Hugh Keays-Byrne as Martian Manhunter, and Jay Baruchel as the villainous Maxwell Lord. When the project slipped into deferment with no exit strategy in place, a number of questions were quickly asked. Was it the writers’ strike? Or problems with the local producer’s offset and shooting in Australia? Did Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale express their displeasure loudly enough to scuttle the project? Or was the whole film just not coming together properly? George Miller eventually moved on to other projects (most notably Happy Feet and Mad Max: Fury Road), and the film – despite sets and costumes already having been created – staggered onto the boulevarde of broken dreams. “It was very faithful to the comics at the time,” Miller told The Word Balloon Podcast in 2014. “Ultimately, I think it’s good that it didn’t come out, as there were parts that were cool that we got right, but there were things that people were going to hate. Some of it was very much aimed at kids.”
Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is released in cinemas on March 24.
