The list of unmade Superman films is long and legendary in the annals of fandom, and perhaps the most famous of them all is the Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage iteration. But the one that arguably got closest to actually being made was J.J. Abrams’ “Superman: Flyby,” with Matt Bomer coming closer than most actors ever get to playing Clark Kent before Brandon Routh wore the cape in “Superman Returns,” before Henry Cavill carried the burden through the Zack Snyder era, and long before David Corenswet became James Gunn’s new Man of Steel.
Speaking on Happy Sad Confused, Bomer revisited his near-miss with “Superman: Flyby,” the unmade early-2000s Warner Bros. project written by J.J. Abrams. The film never made it to production, but Bomer said his run at the role went far beyond a casual audition.
READ MORE: Matt Bomer Says His Sexuality Prevented Him From Landing Superman Role For J.J. Abrams
“I was such an unknown at the time. It’s so hard to know. I mean, I, you know, went in on a cattle call. Then I got a phone call from the casting people,” Bomer said. “Then I went and met with a director and read with an actress. Then I went back in and screen tested in the suit and signed the contract, you know, all that stuff that you do where it’s like, ‘Okay, this is the next step. You’re doing the role.’ “And I know that I was the director’s choice for the role. And then, wah, wah, it happens.”
As Bomer suggests with that sad trombone final comment, that version of Superman has become one of the better-known superhero movies that never happened: a younger, Abrams-penned take on Clark Kent, conceived before the studio ultimately moved in a different direction. Bomer described the script as an adolescent Superman story, centered on a college-age Clark trying to understand his powers while still living a normal life.
“It was a great script,” Bomer said. “It was called ‘Flyby,’ and it was more about him when he was younger. He was like a college student trying to figure out what it means to have all these powers and how to be a normal person and Superman at the same time. And J.J. just crushed it with the script.”
Bomer also recalled how surreal the whole process felt at the time, especially as an actor coming out of soap-opera work and suddenly being treated around town as a potential studio superhero lead.
“At the time, so I was using my money that I made from the soap opera to study with this amazing guy called Ron Van Lieu, who was the head. He’s been the head of the Yale Graduate Acting Program and the NYU Graduate Acting Program. He’s like one of the best acting teachers in the world,” Bomer said. “And so I was using my paycheck from the soap opera to take acting class with him. And I was trying to take all this great knowledge he was imparting to me and bring it into that space.”
The actor said the director attached to the project pushed for a loose, reactive quality in the audition room, shaping the performance in real time rather than locking it into one polished take.
“But I remember it feeling just, especially with the director who was working on the project, he liked it very spontaneous and fresh and different every time, and no two things were the same,” Bomer explained. “And he liked to direct from the monitor a lot and kind of go, see how you did that gesture? Do more like that. That’s the energy worth, like that kind of thing.”
For Bomer, the experience was also a crash course in how quickly Hollywood can rearrange itself around an actor when a major studio role seems possible. He said the possibility of Superman changed the temperature around him almost overnight.
“It was all so surreal to be going from a total cattle call to that, and suddenly everybody in LA wants to meet you, and all I really remember is playing ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem in my headphones before every audition and just trying to stay in the mindset of somehow that I could believe that this could be real, you know?”
Bomer has spoken before about the painful circumstances around losing the role, saying in past interviews that his sexuality was weaponized against him during that period. Here, he focused more on the actual audition gauntlet—the suit test, the contract, the sense that the part was genuinely within reach before the project collapsed into the larger graveyard of unrealized Superman films.
“Superman: Flyby” never happened, but Bomer eventually got his own DC footnote years later, voicing Superman in the 2013 animated film “Superman: Unbound.” Still, his recollection is another reminder of how many alternate superhero timelines exist just offscreen: scripts written, suits tested, contracts signed, and careers nearly transformed before the studio machinery turns another way. Watch the full interview below.
