The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? - Cheap Thoughts

This is one of those film that i'm very torn on but for unreasonable points. Death of Superman (Because that title is a mouthful) is a documentary by Jon Schnepp that explores the production and eventual cancellation of a planned Superman movie that was to star Nicolas Cage and be directed by Tim Burton. Now i was very much looking forward to this film because it's an interesting subject matter and i am a big fan of Jon Schnepp, I even got to meet him at London MCM Comic-Con and talk to him about the film. But watching this film i found myself getting very angry, but not because of the film, but because of the subject matter.

Before watching this documentary, my opinion on the film 'Superman Lives' based on leaked photoshoots and small details was "wow thank god they didn't make that film" and now after seeing the documentary i can say "WOW. Thank GOD they did not make that film". Because honestly apart from Kevin Smith it seemed like nobody even cared or knew anything about Superman and they got the entirely wrong team behind this film. Let me start off with the man who pissed me off the most, the producer Jon Peters, now i'm sure he's a nice guy in real life and everything but good god this might be one of the dumbest producers in Hollywood. He was a hairdresser turned producer who didn't like to read scripts and said he didn't want Superman to fly or wear his uniform...I don't think i need to say more, but i will. Some more of his ideas were to have Braniac arrive at the fortress of solitude and fight Superman's guards, and when told how stupid it would be to give Superman guards he said "fine, polar bears"...what is going on in this guys head!?

Even taking him out of the picture this film still would have sucked, Tim Burton was very clearly the wrong person to be put in charge of this project. Yes, he directed Batman and he did a good job with it, but Batman and Superman are completely different characters. He wanted to make the look of Superman's world more Gothic and Art Deco based, again, that's fucking Batman! Not Superman! Then the designs and choices for the costumes to make it more tech based and having it being passed down from generation to generation, as well as wanting to make the character darker and more edgy. Look i'm not against changing characters but you have to actually understand characters before you're allowed to change them. Make Superman dark and edgy, yeah and while you're at it why don't you make Sherlock Holmes more like Daffy Duck? Or Atticus Finch more like Tyler Durden? Or Yoda more like Mr T? Because the best way to make a character interesting is to completely ignore everything that made them popular in the first place and be different just for the sake of being different you fucking morons!

But again, these are all unreasonable complaints because none of them are to the documentary itself but the subject matter, and it's not like the documentary is edited in a way to vilify anyone, except maybe Jon Peters but even then that's quite subtly handled. So this is clearly my subjective interpretation of the material getting in the way of the merits of the project. As for the technical aspects of the documentary it is very well shot and edited as well as the amount of research and material that went into this film is admirable, after all making documentaries takes a lot of hard work, especially an independent documentary which i can only imagine how much hardwork was put into making this.

I'm very sorry but i cannot get my own personal feelings out of the way when talking about this documentary. Superman is my all time favourite hero and he gets a bad rap these days by people who clearly don't understand him (The next person to complain that he's not relatable gets punched in the face). So seeing professionals in the film industry who were given the character and treating him with such little care just makes me mad as a Superman fan. I praise Jon Schnepp and his team for the effort that was put into the film but i just got so angry watching this and i cannot put that aside no matter how hard i try, but i have to be fair and give this documentary a 7/10.

-Danny