Slashdot Mirror
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.."
If superman returns he had better do it with a crutch and dentures. He should also be the strongest guy at his retirement home :)
For Free Computer Help, and Technical Answers
I think it's time to consider a new line of work..
And yet it'll be sure to bring in wads of $. I honestly don't believe that most movie goers give a rats nut about artistic anything. Just give them lots of flash, explosions, and the occasional breast and all is good.
All the lack of artistic interpretation will guarantee is that it'll not win an Oscar...
Did the script use Kryptonite for that?
Yeah, if the director of Armageddon says, "this is just too goofy", then it's time to shelve the whole thing.
TPJ - Founder, The Amazon Basin
Superman V? But there was never a Superman IV. I saw a movie once called Supermaniv that looked like a Superman film at first, but it obviously was not a Superman movie.
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...
--
Superb hosting 2400MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
You're kidding, right? Superman is, in the end, a big goofy boy-scout in blue tights. He's not a sophisticated urban socialite with a dark secret like Bruce Wayne; he's an all-American country boy who does what's right, by golly! You can't get away from the silliness by going nasty and gothic, like you can with the Gotham crowd; Superman will always be a bit camp.
As for a retelling of the story: which story? Superman has been in thousands of stories. Personally, I was never too keen on Superman solo; he worked best for me in the context of the Justice League, where the permanent tension between him and Batman made things a lot more interesting. I'd like to see a film of The Dark Knight Returns, which really gets to the heart of what both Superman and Batman are really all about...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I mean look, the whole concept of Superman is fatally flawed to begin with. He's pretty much indestructable, so having him fight regular criminals makes for a pretty boring movie. So before you're even out the door you're having to invent increasingly powerful villians for him to do battle with. Problem is, once you're that powerful, why be a villian anyway? You can already do whatever you want. Anyone worth Superman's effort to be fighting should be busy running for Congress anyway. Everyone knows that's where you go if you want to be able to do some real damage...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
http://www.superdickery.com/
Superman is a dick.
(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"
With Batman, he'd had a free hand to make it the way he wanted. However, the success of Batman meant that each future superhero movie had to not only make a decent film, but have characters and vehicles for Burger Kig tie-ins, action figures, etc.
So when he was offered the chance to direct Superman, he told us that it came with so much extra baggage that he couldn't make it the way he wanted to at the same time as keeping corporate partners happy. But he felt it was his own fault, partially, caused by his Batman movie's success back in '89.
"The image of him swooping in and saving the day could be seen as a direct symbolic justification for American imperialism and foreign interventionism."
"American nationalism has always been something which the rest of the world has largely considered ugly...but that has become more true than ever before in the last three years."
Excellent observations, and they'd be relevant if Superman weren't created by a Canadian.
Nice anti-us troll though, way to try to slide it in there.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
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
Stuff that matters: circuitbreakers, vacuum-cleaners coffee makers, calculators generators, matching salt+pepper shakers
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
Stuff that matters: circuitbreakers, vacuum-cleaners coffee makers, calculators generators, matching salt+pepper shakers
I think you make some interesting points, but the scope of your perspective is not big enough. I have some points that might change your mind.
The image of him swooping in and saving the day could be seen as a direct symbolic justification for American imperialism and foreign interventionism...and we've seen how well that turned out.
Superman was created by a couple of Jewish guys who saw America as the hope for the world at a time when the world needed just that; Europe needed a Superman to defeat Natzism. We came into Europe to turn the tide in WWI, and it happened again a few years after Superman was created.
American Imperialism did not start with G.W Bush. The term is really an extension of Manifest Destiny that really began with Jefferson's Lousiana purchase. The imperialism part could be added, I guess, when Monroe issued his statement regarding European intervention in the Western Hemisphere; now known as the Monroe Doctrine. Still, that kept us here, and we weren't much more than a back water country until about the time of the Spanish American war of 1898, when we basically defeated the only European country weaker than we were. Still, we attempted to return to more or less Isolantionism until the First World War, and following that Wilson got us to try to end that with his idea of the League of Nations;where the Justice League came from, perhaps? Superman representing America as the strongest nation for good at the time? Anyway, then the second war came, and we could no longer be Isolationist. Right or wrong, and there is pleanty of evidence on both sides of that argument, we did not go easily into interventionism. It was the Brittish who did it before us while they were trying to make the world England.
With characters like Spiderman or Batman, it's possible to see them as somewhat more nationalistically neutral, but Superman and Captain America in particular are pretty much pure (and vulgar, most of the time) manifestations of jingoism.
Well, Captain America was created in WWII to be just that. Ironically, Uncle Sam was created as a anti-war icon protesting, if I remember correctly, the Spanish-American war. During the war, he was quite vulgar. Have you ever seen the propaganda showing the Jappenese? Still, we were at war, and nationalism was at it's peak. Stopping the Jappenese then was a good thing, so I guess it served it's purpose.
American nationalism has always been something which the rest of the world has largely considered ugly...but that has become more true than ever before in the last three years.
All nationalism is ugly. The very nature of the concept is "our tribe is better than yours." It leads to ethnocentrism and the uglist parts of humanity. To say that American nationalism alone is ugly is to ignore the face of nationalism in EVERY other country. A little nationalism can be a good thing I guess, helping in a crisis like that hurricane, but taken too far, and it's well, I don't need to give you an example.
America is a good place. Would we do better to pull back from the world stage a bit, perhaps, but who would take it? Would the world be better if we did? I don't know the answer, I only pose the question.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
Superman is THE "super" hero. Treat him like it.
And what must that be like, exactly? Should we just have the prop department get bigger, heavier buses for him to throw around in Times Square? Gee, if Superman fought the Hulk, who would win? Is that the kind of "story" you're looking for?
And if so, great, it's called Superman II, and it was really, really good. Arguably the definitive Hollywood treatment of a comic-book slugfest. Superman versus three other supermen, and one of them a young Sarah Douglas. Can't beat that. Or you can TRY and beat that, and up the SFX budget or something. Or you can do something original with the material. Personally, I'm hoping for a "Smallville," 20 years on, without the pandering to the Kristin Kreuk oglers.
Oh, Jesus, God!! I'm arguing about comic books on SlashDot!!!! If my penis falls off, I'm suing you, Taco, I swear...
In the dvd "An Evening With Kevin Smith", Kevin goes into great length about this Superman story.
It's realy fun to watch, my favorite part is about Jon Peters.
For example you learn that Jon requires that:
* superman must NOT fly for no obvious reason
* superman must NOT wear a cape because it's gay
* superman must fight a giant-fuckin-spider
As a sidenote the spider made its way to the Peters-produced movie of the time "Wild Wide West"
Favorite quote:
J.P: "Spiderman must fight a giant spider"
K.S: "Why ?"
J.P: "Do you know anything about spiders ?"
K.S: "No"
J.P: "They're the fiercest killers in the insect kingdom!"
And the same goes on later with White Bears !!!
Seriously, this Jon Peters guy is so messed up !!
Hehe, google to the rescue, here's a transcript from http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=12916::
Supermoron (long)
After seeing Mallrats, Warner Brothers producer Jon Peters considered hiring Kevin Smith to work on Superman Lives. Smith visited Peters in his Hollywood monster home to discuss the project. Peters, who climbed the Hollywood ladder from the lowest rung (Barbra Streisand's former hairdresser), began by telling Smith he was perfect for the project because, like Peters, he understood Superman. "You know why we understand Superman?" he asked. "Because we're from the streets."
Smith, who grew up in suburban New Jersey, did not argue the point and Peters continued. Smith could do whatever he liked with the story, said Peters, with three exceptions. "I don't want to see him in the suit," Peters began, explaining that it made Superman look gay. Secondly? "I don't want to see him flying..."
If Smith was speechless, he had yet to hear the third demand: "I want to see him wrestle with a giant spider in the third act." Why a spider, Smith asked. "Do you know anything about spiders," Peters replied. "Theyre the fiercest killers in the insect kingdom!"
As so often happens in Hollywood, a director (Tim Burton) was soon attached - and insisted on bringing in his own writers. Smith, who had a nasty feud with Burton (after claiming that he had stolen the idea for Planet of the Apes from a comic book) noticed that the spider promptly disappeared from the script. Some time later, however, he went to see another Peters production: Barry Sonnenfeld's Wild Wild West:
"I'm watching this thinking, this is really a piece of s---," he later recalled. He had the laugh of his life, however, as the plot unfolded. The plot? President Grant assigns two U.S. Marshals (Will Smith and Kevin Kline) to stop a deranged madman (Kenneth Branagh) from wreaking havoc on the country... with a giant mechanical spider!
[Many critics called Wild Wild West the worst film of the year.]
Smith, Kevin Patrick (1970- ) American writer, actor and director [noted for his work on such comic book series as Daredevil (Marvel Knights) and Spiderman (2002); and for his roles in (and direction of) such films as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Dogma (1999), Chasing Amy (1997), Mallrats (1995), Clerks (1994), Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary (1992)]