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Superman V: The Sordid Story
ThePuceGuardian writes "With Superman Returning from development hell next summer, perhaps Slashdot's readership would appreciate this summary of the 10+ years spent in development, and the sequel that never quite was.
Years of stupidity and outright seething contempt for the fans who were expected to shell out for the franchise are detailed, from the Kevin Smith era, through Tim Burton and including 'McG's short but not short enough association with the project. The summary ends in mid-2004, which is about a decade after the whole sordid affair should have been capped off, and right before the current production started up.I just have to include this quote:
"Michael Bay was offered to direct the film again, but he felt the script violated the essence of Superman and refused the offer."
WhenMichael Bay declines your project for reasons of artistic integrity, I think it's time to consider a new line of work.."
When Michael Bay declines your project for reasons of artistic integrity
What's the problem with Michael Bay? Let me see.
# Armageddon (1998)
# Pearl Harbor (2001)
# Bad Boys II (2003)
# The Island (2005)
Oh, now I understand...
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(Now I'd LOVE to see a movie that contains a good compilation of events from this site.)
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I found this online: the stange and evil tale of the production of Superman V. It spans decades, $50,000,000 is spent before they even have even settled on a writer or director. It's so horrible. It's out of date as it stops in the middle of 2004, but it's so horrible, you have to read it.
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 (a grand total of 45 minutes' worth of critical story material was excised) 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--he's since re-founded Cannon), and the rights to Superman reverted back to the Salkinds. This was 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 Cary Bates 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. (To this day, the deleted footage from Superman IV remains unaccounted for.)
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, violence-prone wild man (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 Poirier--who scripted Peters' Rosewood, and has since written the bomb See Spot Run and served as writer-director on the much-derided Tomcats--to start over. Poirier's script had an angst-ridden Superman visiting a shrink in order to
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I'm not a Superman reader, but what little I've read ("Kingdom Come", a few others) showed me that Superman's story potential is based around his ability to do pretty much anything versus his unwavering willingness to do good and never let anybody die.
The best stories seem to be built around villains who can manipulate Superman's desire to protect everyone from harm--good, bad and bystander--while they do whatever else they want to do. Superman will torture himself looking for another way in order to avoid killing people, no matter how villainous they may be. It's a bit cliche, but it does make him vulnerable.
Anyway, the Strick script--which Burton adored--was rejected by WB. (In fact, low-level WB execs--then-WB head honchos Bob Daly and Terry Semel were in total support of Burton-Peters--were calling up Kevin Smith and complaining about how Burton and Peters were screwing up the project.) So Burton hired Akiva Goldsman--one of the writers initially considered to replace Kevin Smith--to rewrite Strick's script. Goldsman's rewrite was rejected. Then Burton hired Ron Bass to rewrite Goldsman's rewrite of Strick's script. Bass's rewrite was rejected. Then Burton hired Dan Gilroy to rewrite Bass' rewrite of Goldsman's rewrite of Strick's script. For the moment, WB was appeased. Meanwhile, Burton kept changing his mind about the film's design scheme, and was constantly ordering the art teams to change whatever it was they were doing every day and telling them they weren't doing things the way he wanted. Cinefex Magazine ran an article about Burton's slave-driving the art team, and concept designer Sylvain Despretz went on record as saying that the designs Burton and Peters wanted had little or nothing to do with either the comic books or with the traditional Superman image.
[However, Despretz thinks that movies based on comic books are what's dumbing down cinema--he doesn't believe comics deserve to be translated to film--and he said flat-out that the fans' complaints about Burton's attempted changes to Superman were petty and unimportant. "It's just a movie, everything they were complaining about was inconsequential," he claimed. So really, he and Burton-Peters were on the same page the whole time. Ditto for his fellow concept artist Rolf Mohr, who shared his lack of respect for the Superman character and stated that he went out of his way to avoid being influenced by the comics. Concept artist James Carson was even more anti-fan, asserting that if the fans don't like WB's intended radical changes to Superman, they should pony up the money and make their own Superman movie. Toy designers for Hasbro who were working on the film also complained about the fans, asserting that they should just get over the changes and accept them. Another designer, Brian Lawrence, justified the changes by saying that it was best to think of Burton's Superman as a completely new character who just happened to share the same name as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's creation. The only member of the art team who had any respect for the material and the fans was the aforementioned Pete Von Scholly, who openly stated that Burton and Peters were going about the project the wrong way and that it should have been turned over to fans of the comics from the start. He still feels that way, especially in light of the recent developments on the film.]
Nicolas Cage, having been fighting tooth and nail against Burton and Peters' vision of Superman (even though he'd been putting on a happy public face about working with them), angrily demanded that he be allowed to wear the classic Superman costume and fly. So WB relented much to Burton's dismay, ordering up a rubber Superman suit and flying FX tests. (According to Superman CINEMA, a chintzy, Sam Jones-as-Flash Gordon-type Superman suit was dished up as well, but it went over like a lead balloon.) However, when Cage tried on the rubber suit, it looked stupid. And when they stuck a long-haired wig on him, it looked even worse. And after Burton and Gilroy were finished with their rewritten script, WB looked it over and loathed it. Even worse, all of Burton and Peters' screwing around and causing trouble resulted in the film being budgeted somewhere between $140-190 million. So, in April 1998, just weeks before the film was to start shooting, WB put the film on indefinite hold. By this time, about $30-40 million (including the pay-or-play contracts for Burton and Cage--$20 million for Cage, $5 million for Burton) had already been spent on the project, with nothing to show for it. [It's well over $50 million now, given all the stupidity that occurred beyond this.]
It was at thi
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