Superman Unmade #12: Superman - A screenplay by J.J. Abrams

Here there be spoilers

"There is no one document that defines (the) character - there have been so many permutations, additions and changes... I understand that people are scared of seeing another bad movie, but everyone involved on this one... is desperate to make it good." 
J.J. Abrams on his first draft of Superman.

"I thought it really was loaded with action, loaded with heart, and loaded with humor, but needed work... It's not just a big studio latching on to a trilogy so we can make a billion dollars."

Alan Horn on Abrams' first draft

Who wrote it?

JJ. Abrams, at that time best known for creating TV's Alias, as well as writing credits on Armageddon, Forever Young and Regarding Henry.

When was it written?

This draft is dated July 26th 2002.

How long is it?

139 pages

What's the broad structure?

Act 1  = 1-38

Act 2a = 39-68

Act 2b = 69-113

Act 3 = 114 -139

What's the context?
Developed concurrently with Batman vs Superman by competing camps within Warner Bros., this is the script that won the hearts and minds of senior WB executives, and brought to a head the schism between Alan Horn and Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
Abrams had been announced as the writer (with Joseph McGinty Nichol, AKA "McG" directing) in February 2002. At that point, it seems Andrew Kevin Walker had already turned in a first draft of Batman vs. Superman (The New York Times says WB had read a draft in October 2001) but had yet to turn in his second (dated March 2002). Akiva Goldsman's revision wasn't turned in until June 2002. The first 88 pages of Abrams' script were delivered July 5th 2002, with the complete draft dated 21 days later.
With this in mind, it's tempting to think Goldsman was brought in specifically to lighten the tone of the team-up script, with di Bonaventura knowing that a competing - and potentially lighter-hearted - project was competing for production. The kind of internal machinations and resources necessary to pit one Superman project (and its proponents) against another in this way boggles the mind. Welcome to Hollywood.

Why didn't it happen?
Long before he and Abrams had been announced as Director and Writer (February 2002), McG was already committed to making Charlie's Angels 2 (later Full Throttle). With that sequel scheduled for release in June 2003, he'd be unable to turn his full attention to the Man of Steel for at least a year. di Bonaventura apparently cited this as one of the reasons WB should move ahead with Batman vs. Superman first...
But six weeks later the newly installed EVP, Worldwide Motion Pictures was gone, bundled out with a production deal that was effectively a golden handshake. An alleged power-play against Horn to their Time-Warner bosses had failed. Without its champion, the team-up project imploded.

With its competition vanquished, the solo project was placed on the fast track and McG exited as Full Throttle moved into production. In August, talk surfaced that WB had its eye on Brett Ratner, and in September 2002 he was officially attached. Surely, finally, Superman would fly again?

The next year would make the turbulent development of Superman Lives seem like a warm, fuzzy memory.

First, there was no budget, which meant no official green light. Warners hadn't pulled the plug on the wild costs of earlier iterations simply to blow more cash now. di Bonaventura had guesstimated Abrams' script would cost $250m. Sources suggest Ratner's team were told to aim for $180million. When the figure finally came in, in January 2003, it was $225 million... in production costs only.

Second, the internet hated the script. The then-influential Ain't It Cool News posted a scathing review of Abrams' draft titled "You will believe a franchise can suck", which led to an online petition demanding his removal from the project, and threats against the writer and his family. This wasn't the first such protest, and it wouldn't be the last, but for five or six years AICN's coverage seemed to matter. Before the internet became honeycombed with its clones, AICN was considered an outlier, willing to speak truth to Hollywood power and able to call upon a network of moles to back up their aggressive approach. Abrams was scrambled to explain, and called AICN founder Harry Knowles personally, claiming the script was written in four weeks (a dubious assertion given what we know of the project). He tried to allay fans' concerns, assuring them he was hard at work on the next draft.

Third, there was no star. Ratner simply couldn't cast a lead, and part of his deal was a stipulation that he do so by January 2003. When that came and went, speculation that he was about to be replaced by Michael Bay had to be strenuously denied by all parties. The earlier problem of securing a lead actor but no satisfactory script had effectively flipped, and for a year the trades were full of the names of both newcomers and more established stars, including Josh Hartnett, Jude Law, Ashton Kutcher, Brendan Fraser, Victor Webster, Paul Walker, and Matt Bomer.

The gist seemed to be that none of the more established actors wanted to sign on for three movies over the better part of a decade, and WB was unwilling to rest its flagship franchise on the shoulders of a newcomer.

Fourth, Jon Peters. Ratner had never been Peters' guy. It seems the producer had set out to befriend McG as he blazed his hot streak across town, and the two had then turned their attentions to Superman. McG's visual presentation got him the job, and he recommended Abrams as writer. When Ratner replaced him, the geometry of that creative triangle changed. With no lead actor locked, Peters and Ratner allegedly clashed in a heated (and widely reported) parking lot altercation when Peters attempted to fire Ratner's casting director.

On March 15th 2003, Ratner's option as Director expired, and he departed the project. Despite acknowledging Peters as a "pain in the ass", he denied the producer was behind his exit, and instead laid the blame on his fruitless search for a lead.

Once again, the project died on the vine. Warners' best hope now was Abrams' second draft.

Where does Superman start the story? 
Exiled to Earth from a still-intact Krypton to protect him from his evil Uncle. Thanks to his adoptive parents' caution, he spends most of his life controlling himself to the point of neurosis. He knows he doesn't belong here, but has no idea where he's actually from.

What happens next?
Pretty much his entire life. He meets Lois Lane. Goes to work at The Daily Planet. Encounters Lex Luthor, and in a moment of panic reveals Superman to the world, becoming a phenomenon...

Then four Kryptonians arrive demanding his surrender. Carnage ensues.

Where does Superman end the story?
Coming into his own. Not only has he discovered where he's from and what his destiny is, he's become a leader of the free world, corralling the United Nations into action against the Kryptonian invaders...
Oh, and he's also come back from the dead.

The script
It's a strange beast, beset by the circumstances of its birth.

Someone was so desperate to head off the competing Batman vs Superman project that they attached McG as Director, knowing he'd already committed to another film. So desperate that they had Abrams deliver a draft only two thirds complete (the day after a national holiday).

Knowing he was coming back with more, Lorenzo di Bonaventura countered by officially announcing BvS just three days later.

Abrams had needed to work fast before, but he now came back with the final 51 pages in just three weeks. Unfortunately the join shows, and things fall apart in the last act. Abrams simply didn't have the time to make most of it work.

Still, the first part of his job was done. At this point it didn't have to be great; it just had to be good enough to knock its competitor out of the race to production.

What works?

• Abrams navigates Jon Peters' demands, for the most part. Instead of a giant spider we have Rousers. Superman's cape is described as "a living thing" but isn't actually its own character... yet. He applies creative solutions to make the Producer's infamous notes more palatable.
• Multiple species on Krypton. The planet is presented as home to not just humanoids, but many other types of life. Let's skip over the fact that a humanoid seems to rule them all...
• Superman is still an orphan. For all the furore about Krypton not being destroyed, the "end of Krypton" beat is functionally the same; it's just the end of Krypton as we know it, not the planet blowing up. It doesn't have quite the same impact for us, but for Superman the effect is largely similar.
• It flips the old dichotomy. Unlike so many of the to-date interpretations, nebbish Clark is not the act; Superman is. Abrams writes that he's "acting the part of the confident man for the first time". Superman represents the courage to do things you feel are beyond you; even for Clark. The point at which he embraces this fully is the realisation that he was sent here for a reason, which is how he ends up at the U.N. organising and leading an all-out attack on the Kryptonians. (Yes, the whole negative space metal S revelation is clunky as fuck, but it's plot mechanics that can be hidden or refined later. That's the purpose of a first draft.)
• He's the ultimate immigrant. There's a theme through most of the reboot scripts that's carried forward here, and is perfectly illustrated by the rooftop interview; Superman doesn't know who he is. Reeve's Superman answered all Lois' questions because he knew the answers, but the certainty of that Superman is gone. This one goes out into the world not knowing where he's from, or why, and because he can't answer, eventually people mistrust him. He experiences the classic immigrant's treatment; he's not one of them, and they fear what he's brought with him.
• The Kents are human... Fortunately they aren't paragons of virtue, nor are they the isolationists of Man of Steel. They're apparently the only reason Clark isn't an angry, vengeful god, because almost everyone else is horrible to him. Eventually we're also introduced to Clark's college room mate (with a nice little nod to Superman's creators), who up to that point seems to be the only other decent person in his life.
• Lois and Clark's relationship. They're both alienated in different ways. Nobody likes her because she's "abnormal", but she has focus and purpose. Clark, conversely, is considered abnormal but is is in limbo, having neither direction nor place in the world. In his uncertain state, her surety and determination are beacons, and she becomes a model for the next stage of his development.
• Luthor is an outcast too, and presented as the third point of this "abnormal" triangle. Making him CIA is hardly canon, and doesn't make any more sense than having him be a crazy-rich private individual, but it's no worse than him being a crime boss... and it's definitely better than what comes later.
• Lois' arc. Lois has as much to learn as Clark does about becoming what she needs to be. The power she wields as a journalist is not the point; it's the responsibility she has to use that power wisely which she hasn't yet mastered, and Perry demands of her.
• It's not just punching stuff. Abrams gets that there's almost nothing that can physically harm Superman, so his psychology must be mined for conflict. Clark has a panic attack immediately after revealing himself because it goes against his conditioning. There's no joy in it. To compound this, he knows that his father's death was probably caused by hearing about him on the radio. Once the Kryptonians arrive, of course, Abrams knows people want to see the Man of Steel punch stuff, but not only is he outnumbered and inexperienced, he's hamstrung by the restraint he's grown up with. He's a god, but now among other gods.
• Kryponite poisoning has more pronounced physical effects than just coming over all woozy; try a deathly pallor and blister rash. That visually sells the danger much more succinctly.
• The rescue montage, whilst clunky in places, is at least varied in scale. This isn't just a guy for exploding volcanoes. He'll grab your cat out of a tree too.
• The huge exposition dump midway through the second act works because Abrams blends it with the suspense of Lois' surveillance. It's not just Gray and Burk learning stuff, she is too.
• Abrams repeats sequences from the Kryptonians' battle later in the script, but he does it from a different perspective, which keeps things fresher.

What doesn't work?

• Some demands can't be navigated. Even Abrams can only do so much with Jon Peters' proclivities. So we get Superman seeming "like a savage hunter, hungry for a kill". At one point Abrams actually has to type "Kal El, who will one day become Superman". Presumably because, as related by Kevin Smith, Peters didn't know this.
• Kal-El is royalty. Being an alien with god-like abilities clearly isn't special enough. And just to throw some more kindling on the trope fire, there's a prophecy too. It's boring. The "chosen one" narrative had already been done to death.
• Jor-El is perfect, and utterly uninteresting as a result. A great King, warrior, scientist... and yet still unable to save the planet from his own brother. He also seems to have disappeared from Krypton for years on end in the search for an adoptive home for his son... and nobody noticed. That's a feat for such a beloved leader. Perhaps if he'd spent the time at home, the civil war could have been stopped.
• It's the death of Superman... Again.
• It's tries to do too much. There's an origin, a death and a resurrection in the space of one movie. It's why the script is too long (it takes 38 pages to get to the "present"), and it's why we struggle to care about Superman's death. We've barely met the guy.
• First draft problems. There are failures of basic logic that aren't fundamental to the story and could easily be fixed in the next draft. For example; 
• Cause and (non) effect. What happens when the Kents' landlord makes his heralded visit and finds an alien pod bisecting their field, and a baby who's appeared from nowhere? 
• The suit in a bottle is never really explained. Does Jor-El intend Kal-El to become a hero on Earth? What's its purpose? 
• Lara's exile. Has she just been living out in the desert with Taga for 19 years?! If she's such a badass why hasn't she tried to fight back?
• Abrams' chronology is confusing. It wouldn't harm the film too much, but it causes more than one double-take when reading. Jor-El's age keeps changing, for one thing.
• Dubious sexual politics, including:
• Another attempted rape, of the sort you just can't get away with writing so lazily anymore. Yes, it helps build Clark's character because it reinforces that he has to retain control at all times... It's the event by which he defines his childhood. But it feels gross because that's its only purpose. The aftermath focuses on Clark's trauma and completely ignores Martha's.
• Demeaning Jimmy. You want to make him gay? Go ahead. Effeminate? It's cliched, even back then, but... don't sneer.
• Clark's borderline obsession with Lois. Following her to The Daily Planet is a little creepy, but Clark clearly needed a steer at a sensitive time, and Abrams heads it off by having him admit it to her. The trouble is there's more, because Superman only reveals himself thanks to Clark's feelings for Lois. He tries to save Air Force One because she's on board. There must have been other disasters he could have averted over the years. He'd tell her who he is right then and there, but she doesn't recognise him at all, and so again, we feel like she's the source of all his decisions. When she's fired, he grants her an interview just to get her job back, intimidating Perry in the process. It's... uncomfortable.
• Lois devolves. She's starts as a fearless shit-kicker who takes down huge jocks with Krav Maga. By the end she's afraid of rats, and desperately seeking reassurance from powerful male figures like Perry, Superman and Dressler. The Lois from the start of the script would have aggressively grilled Dressler on why he hadn't taken action against Luthor earlier. This one simpers under his approval of her work.
• The last forty pages. As the script plunges into the third act, internal consistency starts to break down, surely a sign of the rush Abrams was in.
• It reaches for the iconic without earning it. Lois argues that Superman has taught us the right thing to do, but this Superman hasn't yet faced any kind of dilemma that would illustrate that. This is not the Superman of sixty-odd years of comics, and attempting to bundle that in feels incongruous.
• It takes easy paths. When Lois convinces Perry to let her take his car it's the first indication of an underwritten scene. Despite his previous concerns about her recklessness, he doesn't put up a fight; he just trusts her, even though she's given him no reason to.
• The public perception of Superman goes from hero worship to fear and loathing, then back to hero worship very quickly. Did the world want Superman gone but not dead? He's only been in the public eye a couple of weeks.
• The Afterlife... From which not only does Kal return, but does so with his strength doubled and the martial arts skills of a super soldier. These skills haven't been learned or earned. Where does he go from here if he's to grow at all in the next two movies?
• Clark who? Once again, nobody at The Planet has missed Clark at all.
• Why do the Kryptonians stick around? Superman's dead. They've given the planet to Luthor. The plot calls for them to stay, so they can be offed in the most perfunctory fashion imaginable. Baz-Al and Caan's demise in a single paragraph on page 126 is barely a beat. Ty-Zor's demise is hardly more fleshed out, but if Abrams leaves it there, closes the story and goes back ten pages to flesh things out it's completely salvageable. That doesn't happen. There's a good scene with Lois and then...
• Luthor is a Kryptonian. And boy, is the point driven home. It's a twist that sets up and pays off nothing; a worthless, rushed version of a potentially decent idea, and it's really hard to know if it was a late development or if Abrams always had it in mind. There are certainly hints at Luthor's otherness earlier in the script, but the fact that some ground work was done and the twist still doesn't work is testament to its clunkiness.
• The final scene between Lois and Superman, where she all but guesses his secret because he replies to something she told someone else once. She doesn't put together that Clark has also left, or that he disappeared while Superman was dead... nope. She remembers telling Clark that she loved Superman, and Superman saying he loves her too is what finally makes the scales fall from her eyes. It's desperate.

Conclusion
There's a lot of work to do here. Some of it is great, some not. Its DNA permeates the films that were actually made afterwards. The plane rescue, rooftop interview and theft of museum Kryptonite, as well as Martha's exile to the outskirts of the funeral all survived into Superman Returns. The Rousers are clear progenitors of the World Engines in MoS, and the arrival of his enemies survived too; but unlike MOS, there's no dilemma. He knows he has to give himself up to them. He doesn't agonise over it. Nor does he hesitate to leave if he thinks his presence will bring more harm to Earth.

Still it's a long, jarring, unsatisfying script.

Man of Steel preventable death and destruction rating: 7

There's due dilligence in Superman telling everyone to leave the area just before he faces off with the Rousers, and Abrams also makes pains to point out the Defense Department's concern for the public...

Having said that, the script that killed Batman vs Superman, the script Jon Peters deemed full of "hope" is actually more violent. Batman can only do Superman so much damage in terms of scale. The four Kryptonians are a whole other problem. If the film had been made, it might well have had to scale down the destruction or risk the kind of post-9/11 backlash levelled at Man of Steel.

I'll wager Peters' aversion to the Batman vs Superman script was more about his name not being on the title page than any grand ethical stance. Apparently it was fine for our hero to smack bad guys into next week, and create a huge amount of collateral damage in the process, so long as there's "hope" at the end of it all.

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(All sources have been linked to except the script: if you are the creator or originator of any material you feel has been misappropriated, please let me know and I'll do my best to correct the problem.)

Superman Unmade #10: Superman: Destruction

Who wrote it?

Paul Attanasio. Oscar-nominated for Quiz Show and Donnie Brasco, creator of Homicide: Life on the Street, and credited on Disclosure and Sphere (ironically, one of the poorly-performing films alleged to have scared Warner off mega-budget blockbusters like Superman Lives.) Attanasio also had The Sum of All Fears in production at Paramount.

When was it written?
We don't know for sure that it was. If complete, it almost certainly wasn't dated April 2001, unless Attanasio had written it on-spec (highly unlikely for a professional screenwriter using someone else's IP) or the actual deal had been done much earlier. If the latter, why wasn't it announced at the time?

What's the context?
According to the Hollywood Reporter's April 19th, 2001 story ("Attanasio has words for two Warner films"), the writer would receive $3.4 million for two scripts; Superman, and an adaptation of Joseph Kanon's then-upcoming novel The Good German. It was not known which he would tackle first.
"Attanasio will sift through the three or four "Superman" scripts, but he will focus on his own, original take on material based on the death and rebirth of Superman."

If true, this seems to mark a sea-change in the studio's attitude to the project. Though still mired in the "death" storyline, Attanasio would be the first writer trusted to take them beyond the established paradigm in a full script for almost six years.

Variety, meanwhile, echoed the major points of the story but cautioned that the writer's Superman deal had not been closed.

What's the story?
No idea. None. Not the faintest inkling.

Why didn't it happen?
And then... silence.

Superman: Destruction (as the script was allegedly known) has never materialised online, and I've been able to find out almost nothing about it. 

Given how long WB had been trying to get a Superman film off the ground, it's not hard to imagine them prioritising a script for it over a relatively obscure (though expensively acquired) project like German (which wouldn't appear for another five years). But after April 2001, there's nothing. No word on how it was received, or even that it was received.

Five years later, The Wall Street Journal (June 23rd 2006 -  "Getting 'Superman' off the ground") would assert that Attanasio's deal was never actually done.
Glen Weldon's Superman: The Unauthorized Biography claims it was no more than a treatment.
Cashiers du Cinemart went as far as assigning the script a completion date (27th June 2001). They also floated one theory which conflates it with Keith Giffen's Superman/Lobo treatment from late 2000, and another in which it was an unconnected fifty page treatment.

I like the Attanasio-revising-Giffen theory for two reasons:
A) We know Giffen's treatment was deemed too expensive. Could Attanasio have been brought in to take it to script stage at a lower cost?
B) It might explain the not-very-Superman-but-very-Lobo title "Destruction", the origin of which is unclear. It isn't in either of the two trade stories, but it's a little detail that either lends credence to the script's existence, or was made up by someone for that very reason. It depends on your point of view.

Unfortunately, liking a theory doesn't make it right. There's no proof Attanasio revised Giffen.

Although David Hughes asserts that Joseph McGinty Nichol, AKA McG, was attached to Attanasio's script/treatment, I wasn't able to find any evidence of this. The Hollywood Reporter does note his attachment to J.J. Abrams' draft a year later.

And that's all she wrote. It's possible an Attanasio treatment exists, and that the deal to script it was never done. It may or may not have been based on Giffen's Lobo/Superman treatment. It's also possible a partial or complete script exists, either of Attanasio's sole devising or based on Giffen's treatment.
We have almost no facts about this one. Nothing of Attanasio's was included in the WB vs Siegel and Shuster deposition, which leads me to think it doesn't exist... but Giffen's treatment wasn't in the deposition either, and there's good evidence it's real.

Unless something surfaces which sheds new light on this, it looks Superman: Destruction will remain a myth. If anyone out there knows better... educate me.

Superman Unmade #8: Superman Lives! (Take 8)

Here there be spoilers

Who wrote it?

William Wisher Jr., at that point credited on The Terminator (additional dialogue), Terminator 2, Judge Dredd and The 13th Warrior. Wisher is also noted for uncredited contributions to Die Hard: With A Vengeance.

When was it written?

The draft is dated 3.2.00, 17 months after both Dan Gilroy's last draft and WB's purchase of Alex Ford's spec.

How long is it?

116 pages

What's the broad structure?

Act 1  = 1-32

Act 2a = 33-59

Act 2b = 60-91

Act 3 = 92-116

What's the context?
We're back in a deathly quiet period for the Superman project after Tim Burton's departure. Warner Bros. had hit genre paydirt in the spring of '99 with The Matrix, and hired Wisher in June of that year to turn out a new script that would "Matrix-up" the Man of Steel. Superman Vs. Hollywood's contention is that this meant using bullet-time to make his flight patterns more viscerally thrilling. Wisher's script, with input from the still-sort-of-possibly-attached Nic Cage, allegedly attracted the attention of Oliver Stone.

Why didn't it happen?
We don't really know. Wisher's draft came and went without much fanfare outside of scuttlebutt in the Hollywood Reporter (February 17th 2000) that Cage and WB were "very happy" with it. Variety reported talks with Dinosaur co-director Ralph Zondag (June 22nd 2000) that never went anywhere. Wisher never seems to have gone on the record about his time on the project.

What does Superman want at the start of the story? 
Firmly established in Metropolis, and in a no-secrets relationship with Lois Lane, he's having an existential crisis; he doesn't know who or what he is, or why he's here.This creates a rift with Lois, who wants to settle down and get married.

What happens next?
Brainiac, the energy-hungry AI responsible for Krypton's destruction, teams up with Lex Luthor to destroy the Man of Steel by unleashing the creature known as Doomsday. Weakened by their titanic battle, Superman is finished off by Brainiac with a Kryptonite spear through the heart.

Does Superman resolve his conflict, and if so, how?
Yes. Revived by the Kryptonian knight Mal-Ar, to whom he was entrusted as a baby, Superman discovers that he is heir to the throne of Krypton, and that only he can unite its survivors. Stripped of his powers, he uses Mal-Ar's high-tech armour to confront his nemeses, who are busy double-crossing each other over the fate of the planet.

The script
Why Wisher? Perhaps because he had genre "previous". In truth, he was probably less out of left field than Dan Gilroy, and at a relatively lean 116 pages, this draft maintained the promise of a manageable budget. Wisher strips out some of the broader elements from previous drafts, but with input from Cage and the other remaining players presumably consistent, how much had actually changed?

What works?

• Wisher's sparse style is almost like poetry. It's not Walter Hill, but sentences rarely run to more than one line, and it's easy to imagine each as a shot. Each block of text looks more like a stanza than a paragraph so it's a "vertical" read.
• Kryptonite does more than just kill Superman. It amplifies energy and becomes the source of power for all Luthor's gadgets.
• Streamlined exposition. The script makes a decent fist of catching Superman up on his origin late in the second act. Because we've seen it happen already we don't linger, but we know he gets it.
• Second act complications. In previous drafts, K/Eradicator tries to persuade Superman to leave Earth and save himself. Superman declines, provoking much debate about the nature of sacrifice and heroism. Wisher tries the same thing, but with one key difference; the revelation that other Kryptonians survive, and are waiting for Kal to come back and lead them, makes this more than just about saving himself and leaving Earth to his enemies. Kal has always pondered his purpose. Now he has one. It means the script ends with...
• Scope for more. Superman resolves to go out and find the remains of his race. Lois is intent on going with him. Everything doesn't just go back to normal; there's the potential for lasting change. It's almost the jumping on point for the idea behind Superman Returns. There's a little overlap with J.J. Abrams' Flyby too.

What doesn't work?

• "Edgy" Superman. By edgy, once again we mean "a bit of a douche". He's passive aggressive, a little sweary, tries (and fails) to get drunk, and threatens to kill the Lexmen (who are essentially under Brainiac's mind control). If you want to make Superman less of a boyscout, there has to be a reason beyond the vague notion that modern kids think he's uncool.
• Brainiac. Jeez, am I tired of talking about, writing about, thinking about Brainiac. It's never entirely clear why Jor-El decides to shut him down; perhaps he was bored of him too. I think it's something to do with him coming over all Skynet and evolving his own sub-programs. Where previous scripts set him up as Superman's rejected older "brother", here his motivations are tweaked so he's more akin to Jor-El; a father who wants to take care of his "children". Unfortunately, it makes almost no difference. He's just... so... dull.
• Metaphysical claptrap. Once more, Superman wakes up without his powers, and once more he's told they won't return straight away. Not because he's been dead, and had no opportunity to collect sunlight, but because his mind is full of hate for Brainiac... Sigh. It's The Force by another name again. Look, Superman's powers are grounded in a fictional "science" that exists in his world, so why on earth would his feelings hamper them? Why do they suddenly return when Lois is thrown off a building by Brainiac? Does that make him hate the guy less?! Maybe we're to believe that his love for Lois overwhelmed his hate, but I just don't buy it. For a start, how would Mal-Ar know any of this? He's a Knight, not an astrophysicist, or even a metaphysicist. Superman is the first Kryptonian to come to Earth young enough to gain powers; there's no precedent for his diagnosis.
• Superman's "want". There's a hole in Superman's life. He has a feeling that he's here to do something else, but this feels manufactured rather than organic. It always felt odd that he wouldn't marry Lois simply because he didn't know where he came from. Most people go their whole lives without ever knowing why they're here.
• Luthor. After the (mostly) intelligent, ruthless and erudite Luthor of Alex Ford's draft, Wisher's Luthor swings back towards previous iterations; rich, successful, pathetic. A figure of fun, he doesn't even function as comic relief; he's too much of an insufferable whiner. It's unclear whether he's truly behind all his fabulous creations, or if he uses theft and subterfuge to fool the world. The script tries to contextualise him by name-checking Steve Jobs, Ted Turner and Bill Gates but all this serves to do is date it. Despite being fabulously wealthy, he constantly complains about his lot, and is generally treated with disdain by everyone. He's a loser, and it's hard to imagine him ever being a capable foe. He shoots for a redemption of sorts in the final act, trying to stop Brainiac's energy draining mechanism, but that's just self-preservation. He disappears after this, and his fate is never explored. If he had any smarts, he'd have tried to turn Brainiac's machine off earlier rather than confronting him. And what's his ultimate plan? To dominate the internet; a conceit which is so '90s it's almost painful. This Luthor may be the worst yet.
• Superprince. Lois & Clark toyed with the idea of Superman as a potential ruler of a new Krypton, and the idea would be reused in J.J. Abrams' aborted take, but... Superman is generally supposed to be the last of his kind. Sure, other Kryptonians have popped up, and you could argue that if anyone were chosen to survive the destruction of a planet it would be the wealthy elite, but Jor-El is not only benevolent King of the entire planet, he's a scientific genius. Kal-El is thus so special that it makes him less special. It smacks too much of the "chosen one" narrative popularised by Star Wars and reinvigorated by the script's new target...
• The Matrix. The Wachowskis' sophomore effort won hearts and wallets in the spring of '99, so it's not a shock to stumble across several "nods" to it; every other action movie was doing the same. The problem isn't that WB looked at The Matrix. The problem is what they saw, or what they chose to focus on. Not compelling, diverse characters battling through a dramatic story, built on the same kind of timeless, epic framework as Star Wars. No. They looked at The Matrix and saw an aesthetic; revolutionary effects and black leather. They saw the idea of "cyber", which is such a vague concept it doesn't even qualify as a theme. Wisher never uses the term "bullet time", and the assertion that WB intended to use it is all hearsay. But what we do have is a black-suited Superman in a lone assault on an impregnable building, taking on hordes of inter-connected "Lexmen" in suits and dark glasses, running up walls and generally using hitherto unseen martial skills in the pursuit of his goal. Draw your own conclusions.
• Mal-Ar. Although he makes more thematic sense than Cadmus, and would be cheaper to realise than K/Eradicator, he performs much the same function. He arrives at the same time as Brainiac, stalks Superman and mutters dark prophecies at a distance about the time being near. Perhaps if he'd made some effort to engage, Superman could have avoided death altogether? Like Cadmus and K/Eradicator, Mal-Ar, too, ultimately has to go to that great Kryptonian mentor club in the sky. He has no place; all he has is a function.
• The Doomsday throwdown still feels too scaled back, probably for cost. Much of it takes place off-screen, underground. It simply isn't epic enough for what's supposed to be the death of a god.
• Random nitpicks:
• If Brainiac wants Superman's body so badly, why doesn't he just take it? If he's offended by the funeral, why leave a body to bury?
• Why did nobody remove the Kryptonite spear tip from Superman's chest?
• Mayors don't get to outlaw things just like that.
• Is burying an alien Knight in a clearly marked grave a terribly good idea?

Conclusion
Christ, this one was depressing.
17 months had passed with no discernible movement since Gilroy's second draft. WB had bought Alex Ford's spec, but had they used the time to re-examine their options, think about what had gone wrong with the project, and correct course by giving Wisher a clean slate to work from?

Not a bit of it.

Wisher, too is forced to kneel before Zod (or Jon Peters and WB) by adhering to the same basic structure as every writer since Lemkin was handed his P45:

Superman dies.
Superman comes back.
Superman wins.

In fact, they should probably have called the project Superman Wins.

It's almost like the writers didn't matter; plunk any old word-monkey in a chair, give him the (unchanged) beats and wait for the money to come rolling in.

The problem is that this approach produces fundamentally the same story they decided not to make two years previously, when cast, crew, production design and locations were more or less in place. When they were weeks away from shooting. If you don't come back with something different from what you opted not to shoot because it wasn't working, what's the point? It's highly unlikely that the movie would have become significantly cheaper to make in the interim.

So why, WB? Why?

Perhaps because the studio was under new leadership. In July 1999, co-Chairmen/CEOs Bob Daly and Terry Semel stepped down, replaced in August (though not like-for-like) by Barry Meyer and Alan Horn. Given how much time and money had already been invested in the project, could it hurt to try one more time?

It's not that the writing is bad (though some of the dialogue is awfully clunky). It's that there's NOTHING new here. Parts of older drafts are bolted back on, and that means it's just another hybrid of hybrids.

I had high(ish) hopes for this, but it proved a huge let-down.

Man of Steel preventable death and destruction rating: 5
Once again Superman detonates Brainiac's ship over a major metropolitan area. Once again he throws down with Doomsday in the centre of the city (even if much of the battle takes place underground), and he more or less murders Brainiac in a suicide run at his ship.

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(All sources have been linked to except the script: if you are the creator or originator of any material you feel has been misappropriated, please let me know and I'll do my best to correct the problem.)

Superman Unmade #7: Superman - The Man of Steel (Take 7)

Here there be spoilers

"We sent it to my agent and he liked it. He called some people and told them he had a completed script if they were interested.  They paid me for the draft because it did have elements they liked and if they used any of them, it clears them from a lawsuit. In this case, the script was written for kicks just to know it could be done and I was paid later for it."

"They were very nice and told us they liked parts but as a whole, it wasn't what they wanted."

"I can tell you they don't know much about comics. It is a business and what's more important, the $150 million at the box office or the $600 million in merchandising?"

"I read the Smith script and a synopsis of the Gilroy script and they do nothing for me. It's people tinkering with perfection."

Alex Ford on Superman - The Man of Steel

Who wrote it?

Alex Ford (Script)
Alex Ford and Jet Ellison (Story)

When was it written?

The draft is dated 9.4.98.  The "original" PDF widely found online is 122 pages, dated 14.9.08, and seems to have been created from an original text source. Its provenance is unclear, but it's an accurate reflection of the text versions available on the web, down to grammatical and syntactical errors. However, it's Courier font size is actually 11.96, not 12.  I used the text file available here to create another PDF that comes in at 121 pages, and on which this breakdown is based.  Without a hard copy of the script we'll never know if this more accurately reflects the original page count.

How long is it?

121 pages.

What's the broad structure?

Act 1 = 1-30

Act 2a = 31- 60

Act 2b = 61- 88

Act 3 = 89-121

What's the context?
If we looked at all the Superman fan-fic scripts on the Internet we'd be here a very long time. But this one has a place (albeit fleeting) in the development process, so it's worth dwelling on.   
We're back in a relatively dark period of development on the project. Tim Burton had departed, and though Nic Cage was still attached, there was a huge question over exactly what he was attached to. Warners had burned through at least five writers and ten drafts (not counting rumoured, never-seen drafts by Ron Bass and Akiva Goldsman), spending a big chunk of change with no end product.

Fed up with the lack of movement towards the end of 1998, Alex Ford, a twenty-two-year-old comic book fan and repped screenwriter, decided to submit his own script on spec.  Widely considered more faithful to the source material, this actually pre-dates Dan Gilroy's last draft. At least one source states that Ford's script was "accepted" at the WB production office in September 1998. Not only did he manage to get it read, he ultimately got paid for it too.  
Yet it seems Ford was never officially on board, and this illustrates how desperate things had become; the production paid a writer they'd never heard of, for a script they weren't ever likely to use, simply because they liked some of the ideas.

Why didn't it happen?
Jake Rossen's Superman Vs Hollywood notes that Lorenzo Di Bonaventura was interested enough in Ford's script to invite him to a story conference, where the writer proposed a seven-picture series, each featuring a different antagonist (and Lex Luthor as an over-arching nemesis), with Superman's death and resurrection across films six and seven.  He was then sent over to meet John Peters...
Only the two of them know what transpired, but by May 1999, Ford's script was definitely out.

What does Superman want at the start of the story? 
He doesn't really want anything. It could be argued that he's struggling to balance the demands of his heroism with the desire for a normal life, but this isn't really dramatised, merely spoken of. It isn't even addressed until he gets home to Smallville and Lana Lang, his childhood sweetheart. Up to that point there's little sense of the dichotomy Clark describes; that he's saving a city full of strangers and ignoring those he truly loves back home.

What happens next?
Superman's powers begin to wane sharply, just as a mysterious hero named Metallo appears to pick up his slack. When a power failure at a crucial moment almost kills him, the Man of Steel retreats back to Smallville and the promise of a normal life. Meanwhile Metallo, revealed to be a Kryptonite-powered cyborg created by Lex Luthor, grows tired of being on the billionaire's leash and seizes control of the ghetto known as Suicide Slum. In the final act, a weakened Superman returns to Metropolis to face down an enemy whose very proximity could kill him.

Does Superman resolve his conflict, and if so, how?
There isn't really much conflict to resolve. Lana's waiting for Clark, but only when he's ready to come home, implying that he'd have to stop being Superman... which he can't do. It's who he is. There's no more true conflict here than in Kevin Smith's drafts. Clark talks about how he spends his time saving strangers but there's never a sense that he's unhappy, tempted to walk away, or that he wants to come back permanently to the idyllic Smallville. It's embarrassment and fear that forces him back. Lana and Smallville represent the temptation of the normal, but there's really no reason Clark (able to fly from Metropolis in about thirty seconds flat) can't have both lives, and so there's never any tension between his two existences.

What works?

• Reverence - Ford clearly has an enduring love for the character and his world, essayed in his Golden Age opening. He assumes that most of the audience know Superman's origin, but quickly re-caps it in a stylish, to-the-point credit sequence.
• It isn't the "Death" storyline - and that means it's free of the constraints forced upon the previous scripts and writers. Ford ignores the foundations of years of (re)writing and production design, and the script is more refreshing for it.
• Lex Luthor is the probably strongest character. Not the bumbling, megalomaniac mob boss and comic relief of preceding scripts, but a cunning sociopath; smart, rich, and very, very jealous of Superman. Ford argues that Luthor is smarter than his nemesis; so smart that he consistently underestimates him. The boardroom scene where he's told by one of his lawyers that he "can't" sue the Man of Steel would, in previous iterations, have ended with the lackey grotesquely dispatched. Here, it deepens Luthor's character beyond that of a rich murderer with impulse control issues, whilst simultaneously throwing out some necessary exposition.
• The Kents - Previous scripts made it hard to believe Clark was raised in the kind of home that could tame an inclination to abuse his power. But these Kents are everything one might imagine a golden age couple to be; a family who raised a god not to believe he was better than us, and more than that, to sacrifice his own hopes of a normal life for the benefit of others. They aren't at all realistic; their only real purpose is to enshrine Clark's basic goodness. But in those confines they work, in a way the previous iterations never really did.
• A shared universe - When Wonder Woman shows up, it looks like the script might have nodded towards a larger continuity one time too many. Thankfully, she's used sparingly in an extended cameo as "Diana". Evoking another side of Superman's life outside Metropolis and Smallville, the pair ponder the morality and mortality of heroism. It's a fun cameo, even if it's more or less the same conversation he has with Lana, and both are ultimately reducia of the Mount Rushmore scene from Smith's script; why does he do what he does? There are other nods to the DC universe (the Justice League is alluded to) but none are heavy-handed enough to derail things.
  
• The villains' relationship - In so many comic book movies to this point, the antagonists are thrown together haphazardly, with little unifying motivation but hatred of the hero. This pairing is different; Luthor created Metallo, and so their relationship makes a lot more sense than teaming him with a god-like being such as Brainiac, which creates a power imbalance that repeatedly left Lex looking absurd.
• The post-credits "stinger" - This may well have been the first of its kind for a comic book movie.

What doesn't work?

• Style is a matter of personal taste, but there are ten line blocks of text that could be trimmed to make it leaner. The syntax and grammar are often maddening, and it's too reliant on parentheticals. When minimum words should have maximum impact, paring vital information from throwaway stuff is key. Do we really want to use a whole action line specifying the font of the newscast graphics? Points which can be communicated with one line of dialogue (e.g. the real purpose of Metallo's bimbos) are often supplemented by needless action lines performing the same function.
• Golden Age Superman - Ford said he wrote with Chris Reeve in mind, but it's hard to picture his Superman indulging in some of the casual cruelty he displays here. He crushes a bank robber's hand, and burns another's with a hot bullet. He actively avoids letting his parents know he's survived the reactor meltdown. He belts Metallo in the face while he's holding Lois. Then he tears out Metallo's heart, carves off his arm with heat vision and shoots him with a really big gun. Sure, he acknowledges this "murder" afterwards, and it turns out Metallo's brain is still alive, but does that excuse the intent?  We're not in the Golden Age anymore. Was Ford suggesting that authoritarian jerk might be needed in the '90s?
• The ladies - In preceding scripts the romantic focus has largely been on Lois, so usurping her with Lana is a potentially interesting move. Unfortunately they're both utterly one dimensional. Lois is a big-city bitch (again, Golden Age be damned) whose relationship with Superman feels perfunctory because they barely interact. Her rivalry with Clark is more substantial but still unsatisfying; she seems to actively dislike him because he's a faster writer and an all-round good guy. Lana, by contrast, is a small-town idealisation; virtuous, loving, kind and patient, except when she's passive-aggressively reminding Clark that he should have married her, and that he still can, if he abandons his calling. Diana actually works well as a counterpoint to these wildly divergent female characters.
• The tone - This isn't a period piece, so it's jarring to have a Golden Age opening in the same script as the lewd perp in the police station, cop-killer Metallo and a Lois who spits in his face. It's tough to subtly blend different tones, and these are so disparate that they end up feeling awkwardly bolted on to each other.
• The "death" of Superman - Despite excoriating the previous scripts for their mishandling of the death storyline ("To kill the character in one movie and expect people to feel anything is ridiculous"), TMOS has him apparently perish in a nuclear reactor. Except it transpires he didn't die. It's an odd, confusingly written sequence that just doesn't work.
• It isn't really ABOUT anything - A bunch of stuff happens but there's little thematic through-line and little conflict to resolve. Like Metallo, there's a structure and a brain but only a mechanical approximation of a heart.
• Logic problems - 
• Why is Metallo instantly known as... Metallo? He looks human, so why does nobody think to ask him how and why he got his name? How does Angela Chen interview him remotely? Why does nobody from his past life recognise him on national TV?
• Who gets on a monorail to flee an impending nuclear meltdown?
• If Luthor's plan is to supplant Superman, why doesn't he simply prevent Metallo saving him from the nuclear meltdown? With Superman dead, Luthor's problems are over, and that far outweighs the PR value of Metallo's rescue. (Which is negligible anyway, because nobody knows Luthor is behind Metallo.)
• Why does Metallo decide to destroy Suicide Slum? Hamilton theorises he's trying to hide his radiation signature by staying close to the nuclear plant, but he's already appeared all over Metropolis, and Hamilton has the corresponding radiation spikes to prove it.
• Would Luthor really take the time and effort to explain his grand plan to Superman after it had failed? And why use the device designed to mask a lying heartbeat if he's telling the truth? Superman now knows exactly what he did and how... It's a bluff that's not a bluff. 

Conclusion
Parts of The Man of Steel's approach are oddly prescient; in the last decade we've all become familiar with stinger scenes and cinematic shared universes. But these solid, ahead-of-their-time ideas are let down by frustrating writing and a story that doesn't actually feel like it's going anywhere or doing anything captivating enough. Where previous scripts were often too epic for their own good, The Man of Steel swings too far the other way; it could have made a half-decent double episode of Lois & Clark, but it doesn't feel big enough to be a Superman movie.
 
Man of Steel preventable death and destruction rating: 5
Suicide Slum has been more or less cleared by the time Superman and Metallo throw down. But Superman effectively murders his opponent (the intent clear despite Metallo's brain surviving) and he injures two others; a bullet burn is one thing, but shattering a man's hand? Dick move, Superman.

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(All sources have been linked to except the script: if you are the creator or originator of any material you feel has been misappropriated, please let me know and I'll do my best to correct the problem.