the death of superman lives what happened?

[riddler]

**note to mods, I considered putting this in the comic movies section, if you feel that is more appropriate feel free to move it.

I just ordered the special edition of this documentary, here are are a bunch of points I found interesting;
1) Kevin Smith re iterated the 3 rules he was given by Jon Peters; supes can't fly, can't wear the suit, and has to fight a giant spider. Peters denies not allowing him to fly
2) surprisingly Smith admits his first choice for director was Tim Burton based on the success of his batman films. I found this interesting as Smith has criticized Burton for departing from the comics. Smith blames the projects failure as having too many cooks in the kitchen (too many people making too many demands)
3) Burton acknowledged that he hated super heroes, when asked why he made Batman Returns, he indicated that he learned a lot making the first film and wanted to apply what he learned to a sequel.
4) When asked about Jim Carrey as Brainiac, Burton's response was "was he even born yet" (interesting because it was just mentioned he played the Riddler.) Burton confirmed his choice for Brainiac was Christopher Walken.
5) It seems Nicholas Cage was the only choice for supes. Cage said that while he stayed attached to the character after Burton left, he dropped out around 2002. He wasn't interested in the nostalgic version which ended up being Superman Returns. Cage stated he wanted to turn the character upside down.
6) Something kind of humorous is that Bryan Singer had a picture of Cage in the superman suit which he flashed at WB several times when receiving resistance on choices in SR saying "this is what you wanted"
7) Burton acknowledged he'd usually done dark films he said he wanted a challenge of doing a lighter film.
8 ) In Smiths first script (which had the death of super man), Batman addresses metropolis about their fallen hero. This is something WB enjoyed. It was never stated who was slated to play Batman.
9) Tim Burton had dissention with WB as he felt Joel Schumacher F****d up the Batman franchise.
10)interesting side note; in the first Batman film it was actually filmed at the begging for Keaton to tell johnny gobs "I'm Batman mother f**er" WB censoring out the profanity
11) Confirmed that Chris Rock was cast as Jimmy Olson. Also confirmed that Kevin Spacey was the only choice for Lex Luthor
12) the main reason for the nixing of the project is that WB had far too many big budget flops from 96-98: Steel, Batman and Robin, Sphere, the Postman, Major league abck to the minors, Mad City. There were a lot of exectutives fired at WB during that period. At the end of the day they didnt feel Tim could bring a commercial superman to the screen starring Nicolas Cage. It was too dangerous of a film at the time and couldn't afford another bomb. At 1998 it wasn't completelly cancelled, it was only deferred for a potential 2000 shoot with funds and resources deferred to Wild Wild West. Brainiac concepts were used on Kenneth Branaughs character with the giant spider used in the finale. Of course WWW bombed as well which pretty much killed Superman.
13 ) Jon Peters talked about casting Keaton as Batman he said clean and sober is what sold him citing he thought Keaton was a genius. He did say the first batman was his favourite movie he ever produced
14) One thing I wasn't able to deduce is if it would have been a sequel to the Reeves films. Peters, Smith, Burton, and Cage all indicate they wanted to show a superman that had never been done in live action before.
15) Jon Peters called Kevin Smith an amateur and cited his script was not very good.
16) Krypton and Kryptionian technology would have been a big concept in the first act with Kryptonian technology reviving superman.
17) Brett Rattner and McG were the next directors attached after Tim Burton left the project. Basically once Burton committed to Sleepy Hollow he never again had serious discussions to return.
18) Jon Peters believes JJ Abrams Flyby script was the best one never produced, mainly due to a required budget of about $300 mil. One big change in that script would have been making Lex Luthor a Kyrptonian. This was the last rejected script prior to Singer signing on for Superman Returns. He did speak highly of Singers vision but felt Man of Steel was better mainly because it explored outer space and Krypton mroe.
19) As far as how close it got, they were less than a month from shooting before it got nixed. The shoot would have been in Pittsburgh.