Tim Burton’s Superman Lives Was Almost Revived, And Here’s How

Out of the many mooted superhero movies that have failed to materialize over the years, none have reached the legendary status of Superman Lives. Intended to reboot the Man of Steel’s cinematic career in the 1990s, Batman director Tim Burton was attached to helm, with Nicolas Cage of all people signed up to star as a mullet-headed Superman.

The story of what it would have contained and why it never made it to screen has been told before in the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, but we’ve still never got an actual feeling for what it would have been like and obviously never will. That almost wasn’t the case, however, as at one point, the project was nearly revived.

While talking to the press to promote Batman vs. Two-Face, screenwriter Michael Jelenic revealed that he pitched a Superman Lives animated movie to Warner Bros. back in the day. Though they apparently “took it seriously” for a short period of time, the film ultimately never got off the ground…. Again.

“I had a big pitch, and [Warner Bros.] took it seriously for a second – to do Tim Burton’s [Superman Lives]…to do that animated.

The icing on the cake of this idea is that Jelenic believes that Nicolas Cage would be on board to lend his voice to Kal-El for the animated flick. “He would absolutely do it!” the writer said.

DC’s series of straight-to-home-video animated movies are usually used to adapt classic comic book storylines, but they have branched out into tackling aborted live-action films in recent years. Justice League Dark, for instance, is loosely based on the script for Guillermo del Toro’s unmade movie about the team.

Even if Superman Lives never makes it to the screen, we hope there are other similar plans afoot. How about, say, an animated version of George Miller’s Justice League Mortal, or even Joel Schumacher’s Batman Unchained? Any takers for those? Let us know in the comments section down below!