4 ‘Superman’ Movies That Never Took Flight

The McG/”Flyby” Version

In 2002, attempts at turning the “Death of Superman” comic into a big screen adventure were put aside. J.J. Abrams, then a dazzling young writer of prime time fiction, came on board to write a jazzed-up origin story that would reinvent a tired franchise (sound familiar?). Abrams script, which was subsequently leaked and savaged on nerd site Ain’t It Cool (whose withering review paraphrased the original film’s ad campaign by taunting, “You will believe a franchise can suck!”), involved the evil twin of Superman’s father, a fully intact Krypton, and Lex Luxor recast from a billionaire land developer villain to a CIA agent obsessed with UFO phenomena who has potentially otherworldly origins himself…

“Rush Hour” director Brett Ratner became attached in 2002, with a 2004 release date loosely scheduled. While a number of actors came close to signing on to the title role, with Josh Hartnett offered $100 million for three films (Ratner envisioned the movie as the beginning of a trilogy which he would direct). The next spring, citing difficulties with casting and – shocker! – difficulty working with Jon Peters, Ratner left the project. McG, who had flirted with an earlier version of the movie, returned. McG busily began overhauling “Flyby,” installing Josh Schwartz, the wunderkind behind the McG-produced television series “The OC,” to rewrite Abrams’ script and instructing Stan Winston to construct a prototype suit (a thread throughout all of these abandoned Superman projects seems to be that they always built a suit; if you want your version to succeed, don’t make a suit). Intriguingly, Henry Cavill, who plays Superman in “Man of Steel,” auditioned for the role back during the McG era, and according to some was the next in line for the red-and-blue cape. Sadly, the project fell apart in 2004 when the studio insisted that the movie be shot in Australia (where they had just made the two “Matrix” sequels back-to-back) and McG, who has a crippling fear of flying, bowed out of his commitment and went on to do “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” instead. He was replaced with Bryan Singer and the whole movie took on an entirely new life of its own. Singer’s take on the Superman mythology involved returning to the world Richard Donner had established in the first two “Superman” movies. His “Superman Returns” would open in 2006. For some of the early iterations of “Flyby,” Ashton Kutcher was considered for Superman, and Scarlett Johansson was up for Lois Lane. Shia LaBeouf could have played Jimmy Olsen and Johnny Depp was thought about for Lex Luthor. Imagine that?

The Wolfgang Peterson/”Batman vs. Superman” Version

To rewind a minute, a year before Abrams was hired to do “Flyby,” Warner Bros. accepted a pitch from “Seven” scribe Andrew Kevin Walker called “Batman vs. Superman,” which pitted the two kingpins from the DC Comics universe against one another following the death of Bruce Wayne‘s wife at the hands of the Joker (on their honeymoon, no less). In the same year, Wolfgang Peterson, best known for his German submarine miniseries “Das Boot,” was attached to direct. Subsequently, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who had helped shepherd “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” to the big screen, heavily rewrote Walker’s brooding draft, which seemed to make incredibly little sense in the end (somehow Lex Luthor is actually responsible for all the bad blood between Batman and Superman so they team up to bring him down). While never publicly stated, many believed Goldsman was brought in to make the movie lighter and expand the film’s merchandising and toy-selling possibilities, something that has plagued the development of almost every version of “Superman” mentioned in this piece.

Josh Hartnett was again approached to play Superman, despite repeated public statements suggesting that he still wasn’t interested, while in an ambitious move, Christian Bale was asked to play Batman in both “Batman vs. Superman” and Darren Aronofsky‘s long-gestating adaptation of “Batman: Year One” (the seeds of which would become Christopher Nolan‘s “Batman Begins“; Johnny Depp and James Franco also flirted with the roles.) Right before filming was to begin, Warner Bros. dropped the project in favor of developing stand-alone features for their famous superheroes, which led to “Batman Begins” and (of course) “Superman Returns.” At the time, it was thought that a series of individual films would eventually lead to a “Justice League” movie, similar to the approach Marvel took with their superhero franchises. After a middling attempt at a “Green Lantern” movie, that never came to pass, but obviously it is still Warner Bros. hope for one day down the road.