rationalskepticism.org

The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened? (2015)
(YouTube)
Free on youtube (embedded below). Was prompted to it by an Armchair Auteur video (currently the only youtube movie critic I'm subscribed to, not counting AngryJoeShow). He got his hands on every Superman script that was picked up but never turned into a movie. This one (Superman Lives, actually 3 scripts) was maybe the most interesting.

I'd never heard of this would-be Superman movie, starring Nicholas Cage with Tim Burton directing. I'm pretty sure now that it would've been great. This docu covers the three scripts (the first was Kevin Smith's) and pre-production, with about a dozen people giving interviews, including Burton and Smith. The involvement of producer Jon Peters, who snatched up the rights when Warner Brothers weren't looking, is infuriating, but though he had some laughably bad instincts & was abusive to the crew, it turns out not all of his ideas were shitty. But most of the good ideas came from elsewhere, including the comics.

The second two thirds are filled with concept art and props - very cool stuff. For example, the evolution of the black suit would've been rad - and I don't think we'll ever see it fully realized again, though apparently there's a negligible nod to it in the Snyder cut of Justice League. For a lot of other reasons, Burton/Cage's Superman had the right alchemy. And it was being made at exactly the right time, but also exactly the wrong time (heckled by whiny fanbois, though ultimately sabotaged by the studio itself because of money woes). Our loss, imo.