Because they couldn't call it "Superman Aborted" without offending a lot of people.
To celebrate/commiserate (depending on your point of view) the release of Man Of Steel, I finally got around to doing something I'd been promising myself for months. I started reading Superman scripts. It also helps that I borrowed an iPad. If you read scripts and you don't have a tablet, get one. It makes things so much easier.
Superman movies post-1987's Quest For Peace is one of, if not the most complicated development hell story ever to come out of Hollywood. Given the history, the legal battles and the sheer amount of money spent on iterations that never got off the ground, it's a wonder Man Of Steel got made at all.
You can read more about the Kryptonian convolutions over at David Hughes excellent blog. He tells it like it was, so I don't have to. If you're into this sort of thing (and if you're not, I've gotta ask; why are you here?) I also highly recommend his book, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made.
For geeks there's a power to these unmade movies, an alternate universe of possibilities and never-weres that's capable of blowing our hive-mind. But the truth is, it's also fun to read these stories; not just the fictional ones which never played out on-screen, but the true ones that prevented them from doing so. It allows mere mortals to dabble in the (occasionally outrageous) behaviour of some of the players, to experience the turn-on-a-dime mercuriality of the film business. These tales play to the same parts of the brain that find raw, unprocessed stimulation in gossip and rumour. They're fun stories told about fun stories that never got to be told.
It was David's book that first highlighted, for me, the long and torturous gestation of Superman Lives, a movie so unfortunately titled it may as well be the dictionary definition of the word "ironic". I remember being aghast at the web of press speculation during the mid to late 90s, the cavalcade of allegedly "locked" Lois Lanes which seemed to lengthen by the week as the film geared up to production and Nic Cage cashed his cheque.
And then... nothing.
Superman did not live. Hollywood threw the sheet over his corpse and walked away.
Scripts for various iterations of the project have been available on the web for ages. I dabbled occasionally (sticking a toe into the murky waters of Kevin Smith's draft) but never really committing to the read in any way.
That all changed when Wes Strick's draft of Superman Lives got into the wild in early 2013. I couldn't refuse the call anymore. In fact, I live tweeted my reactions to it. I was kinda hooked; and that's when I had the idea to do this; read, strip down, analyse, report.
Learn.
And I found that it goes deeper than just "Lives"; before that, Kal-El was supposed to be Reborn, and a number of scripts came to light in 2009 (as part of a deposition in the legal battle over the rights to the character) which outline exactly how this was supposed to happen. It went beyond the 90s, too: after "Lives" died, there was still spark in old cadaver yet if someone was willing to work hard enough to nurture it.
The 12 scripts I'm reading span 21 years, from the abortive 1992 attempt by the Salkinds to rekindle the big blue boy-scout's film career to J.J. Abrams infamous and ill-fated 2003 "Flyby", the backlash to which allegedly startled him so badly that he became a one-man directing Alcatraz, locking down his scripts, his films and their secrets with a religious fervour from that point on.
Why am I doing it? I'm a screenwriter. The best way to learn screenwriting is to watch movies, read scripts, and write pages. This little project fulfils one of those three criteria, and though it used to be two, ask Meatloaf now and he'll tell you that in tough times, one out of three ain't bad anymore.
I won't be linking to the scripts. Far too many people have got into trouble for that kind of thing and I've no desire to bring that kind of heat on myself. If you want to find them, they're out there.
The polarised reactions to Man Of Steel, not to mention the apparently revisionist view which has grown up around Superman Returns, indicate two things to me:
At their worst? Well, we'll get there.
To celebrate/commiserate (depending on your point of view) the release of Man Of Steel, I finally got around to doing something I'd been promising myself for months. I started reading Superman scripts. It also helps that I borrowed an iPad. If you read scripts and you don't have a tablet, get one. It makes things so much easier.
Superman movies post-1987's Quest For Peace is one of, if not the most complicated development hell story ever to come out of Hollywood. Given the history, the legal battles and the sheer amount of money spent on iterations that never got off the ground, it's a wonder Man Of Steel got made at all.
You can read more about the Kryptonian convolutions over at David Hughes excellent blog. He tells it like it was, so I don't have to. If you're into this sort of thing (and if you're not, I've gotta ask; why are you here?) I also highly recommend his book, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made.
For geeks there's a power to these unmade movies, an alternate universe of possibilities and never-weres that's capable of blowing our hive-mind. But the truth is, it's also fun to read these stories; not just the fictional ones which never played out on-screen, but the true ones that prevented them from doing so. It allows mere mortals to dabble in the (occasionally outrageous) behaviour of some of the players, to experience the turn-on-a-dime mercuriality of the film business. These tales play to the same parts of the brain that find raw, unprocessed stimulation in gossip and rumour. They're fun stories told about fun stories that never got to be told.
It was David's book that first highlighted, for me, the long and torturous gestation of Superman Lives, a movie so unfortunately titled it may as well be the dictionary definition of the word "ironic". I remember being aghast at the web of press speculation during the mid to late 90s, the cavalcade of allegedly "locked" Lois Lanes which seemed to lengthen by the week as the film geared up to production and Nic Cage cashed his cheque.
And then... nothing.
Superman did not live. Hollywood threw the sheet over his corpse and walked away.
Scripts for various iterations of the project have been available on the web for ages. I dabbled occasionally (sticking a toe into the murky waters of Kevin Smith's draft) but never really committing to the read in any way.
That all changed when Wes Strick's draft of Superman Lives got into the wild in early 2013. I couldn't refuse the call anymore. In fact, I live tweeted my reactions to it. I was kinda hooked; and that's when I had the idea to do this; read, strip down, analyse, report.
Learn.
And I found that it goes deeper than just "Lives"; before that, Kal-El was supposed to be Reborn, and a number of scripts came to light in 2009 (as part of a deposition in the legal battle over the rights to the character) which outline exactly how this was supposed to happen. It went beyond the 90s, too: after "Lives" died, there was still spark in old cadaver yet if someone was willing to work hard enough to nurture it.
The 12 scripts I'm reading span 21 years, from the abortive 1992 attempt by the Salkinds to rekindle the big blue boy-scout's film career to J.J. Abrams infamous and ill-fated 2003 "Flyby", the backlash to which allegedly startled him so badly that he became a one-man directing Alcatraz, locking down his scripts, his films and their secrets with a religious fervour from that point on.
Why am I doing it? I'm a screenwriter. The best way to learn screenwriting is to watch movies, read scripts, and write pages. This little project fulfils one of those three criteria, and though it used to be two, ask Meatloaf now and he'll tell you that in tough times, one out of three ain't bad anymore.
I won't be linking to the scripts. Far too many people have got into trouble for that kind of thing and I've no desire to bring that kind of heat on myself. If you want to find them, they're out there.
The polarised reactions to Man Of Steel, not to mention the apparently revisionist view which has grown up around Superman Returns, indicate two things to me:
- How people react to interpretations of Superman often reflects their outlook on the world.
- For that very reason, Superman is tough to get right.
At their worst? Well, we'll get there.
