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Look, up in the sky, it's a bird. In the plane! The motherfucking caged podcast. And here this week I am here for this bonus episode to talk to you about multiverse theory that out there in the vastness of space, that there are multiple universes, and in those universes there are multitudes of eventualities.
That at any given moment that there is a planet somewhere, that humans are shoes and shoes are humans, and that marshmallows are not something edible, but they are big, globeless monsters that attack people just like that in the Ghostbusters. And in a multiverse that the Ghostbusters actually happened, and anything that is fathomable in your mind that could happen, could happen. And in one of those crazy, crazy universes out there in 1998, a film called Superman Lives Came Out, and that film was directed by the Great Tim Burton. And that film also starred Nicholas Cage.
That may sound like a crazy concept to you, and something that would only happen in a multiverse, and wouldn't happen in this tiny little universe that we live in, and this planet that we live on called Earth. But the craziest thing about it is that that could have been a possibility in the world we're living in now. And I'm here to talk about what happened. And the best way to do that is to go back all the way back to 1996.
It's 1996, and Nicholas Cage is one of the Oscars for Best Actor in Leaving Las Vegas. Mel Gibson has won Best Director and also Best Picture for the film Braveheart. Kevin Spacey has also won Best Supporting Actor. I wonder what happened to those last two guys, and if there is maybe one off track at all.
The Spice Girls suite charts with their hit single Wannabe. Two pack and big give unfortunately met there to Mys. Mad Cowdersy spreads across the UK, and Prince Charles and Princess Diana's relationship seems to be hitting the skids. But we're not here to talk about that.
We're here to talk about little events that happened in a movie studio lot at Warner Brothers. A little chat between some studio execs and Kevin Smith. Kevin Patrick Smith, born August 2nd, 1970 in Red Bank, New Jersey, rose to stardom with his hit film Clerk. The low-budget indie smash that has since become a cult favourite amongst many people myself alike.
Then in 1995 he wrote and directed the film Moratch, which brought in much of his love of comic books, and you can see it much throughout this film. Was it this that brought him to the door of Warner Brothers? Did they want to give him a chance at one of their franchises or their comic book films that they had? One of the DC properties?
Not quite. He was there for much different reasons. They wanted him to drag the corpse of another dead franchise or property out of the grave and run with that. And the ones that they had for him were Beetlejuice Goetropical, an idea that he thought, no thank you, not for me.
And it was only by chance that they had mentioned that they had a script for, at their entitled, Superman Reborn, a film in which the early script detailed Superman's desires to get away from being a superhero and seeking advice from psychiatrists and psychologists saying, I can't deal with this anymore, I have so much anxiety about having kids and my relationship with Lois Lane, and how can I be the superhero when I don't feel right amongst myself? And Kevin Smith saw this script and thought, that's a load of trash. And then from much back and forth and deliberation and working his way up the ranks of the studio at Warner Brothers, he managed to convince them that he should be the one to write the script. The first thing on his agenda was to get rid of the title.
Superman reborn. What did that say to the people? It said, Hey, let's just rebrand this for a new generation. Nah, that doesn't fly.
Let's give it something with a bit more vibrant. Superman lives, then was born and so did Kevin Smith's script. To shake up the image that had been created by Richard Donner and his film starring Chris Murray, that were very campy a man in a leotard, prancing about fighting other men in leotards, Kevin Smith looked at inspiration from the 1993 series, The Death of Superman, in which Superman is killed by a beast of a monster that is doomsday, who is literally his adversary in the best kind of way, a physical, brutish, evil villainous monster that eventually takes him down. And in his treatment, he would have Superman die.
What better way to have the series rejuvenated and come alive again, just like Superman would in his story, being brought back by Kryptonian technology and to fight another day against a whole host of villains, including Doomsday, Brainiac, Lex Luthor. In his script, he had ideas of having cameo, the first of which would have been deadshot as well as Batman, in which rumors have circulated that Michael Keaton was very much interested in reprising his role for this film. Let's just think about that for a second. Having characters come in almost creating a DC universe in 1996.
This is an idea that nowadays we take for granted with the MCU and the DC universe, it's just old hat. We just every film, there's a link to something else or there's a character pop up and you know that Nick Fury's going to be this guy in the next film and we're going to have this whole thing and they're all in to Linkin, they're all in bed with each other and all. But this is 1996, let's just think about for a second. It would have been crazy and this whole ball would have been rolling a lot earlier than it did.
Having thought he had nailed his script, Kevin Smith thought, that's it, I'm going back to New Jersey, I'm going to get on with my life, see what happens with this script I've written. But Warner Brothers had other ideas and said we'd like you to meet with the producer, a guy called John Peters and he has a few notes you'd like to put against the script and he would like you to read the script for him. Upon meeting John Peters, he had three rules but before we get to those, who is John Peters? John Peters was born on June 2nd 1945 in Van Nuys, California.
He started his career in Hollywood as a hairdresser on Rodeo Drive, yes you heard me right, he was a hairdresser. He managed to make movie star connections and connections amongst the business and he created a wig for Barbara Streisand, he went on to start dating and then before you know it, he was a movie producer with his early work including a star is born starring Barbara Streisand and the main event in which Barbara Streisand plays a box. I'm not saying this film but it sounds fucking great and I'm sure I'll get around to doing it. Maybe Cajun season two will be Barbara Streisand, what a wild ride that would be.
But moving forward a few years he had managed to be the producer and a very hands-on one that on the Tim Burton 1989 Batman and also the 1992 Tim Burton directed Batman Returns and this is where his foray into comic book movies began and he had managed to by some chance some clerical error and some someone not in their minds and crossing those teas and not keeping an eye on what properties had gone out of license but that crafty bastard John Peters managed to get his grubby little paws on the rights to the Superman films. Though this brings us Kevin Smith and John Peters have connected in John Peters's Hollywood home in which he has sat down Kevin Smith and said hey boy your little fat shit you're going to read me this script because I like people to read me scripts and they've run a script for me but I've got three things. I kind of like him what you've got going with this but I've got three things I really want you to do in this film and they are as this the costume it's got to go. In his words it looked too faggy.
Number two no flying I don't feel I don't like the flying it looks cheap it looks crap it looks corny as hell none of that flying and his third one was in the third act he would like Superman to fight a giant spider that is it a giant spider guys I know with John Peters you might be thinking you're mishearing things he did start off as a hairdresser and yes he did want Kevin Smith to write into the script that Superman fought a giant spider. Kevin Smith though got created with with this and managed to write into the script that it wasn't so much a spider but was a Targaryen snare beast that came from a distant planet and it was all types of craziness and while Superman was dead Brainiac would stumble upon the fortress or solitude and John Peters wanted there to be something going on he wanted an action scene and as Kevin Smith has said himself he's like what do you mean like what do you want from me there should be a fight he should fight some polar bears you know because they're these fierce beasts as well they will make a shred a man with no hesitation polar bears are tough as shit and as Kevin Smith has alluded to and said and not alluded to he has outright said in interviews why would Superman need bodyguards and it's the fortress of solitude it's it's just him there man he's there alone why would he need guards but John Peters wanted it anyway and he's a man who seems to have liked to get what he wants and he wants that now with John Peters happy with Kevin Smith's script the next point of call was who the fuck is going to direct this motherfucker and names were banded around but the one they both agreed on was Tim Burton. Tim Burton to this point had kind of established his career as the king of the goth and the weird and said managed to kind of create a crazy vision of Gotham in his Batman films that just had that Tim Burton edge to them and he had just come off directing Mars Attacks something that had kind of almost looked like something that could have leapt off the pages of a comic book itself and kind of disregarded Tim Burton's color palette off the the dark and the drab and the dull and looked like something a bit more bright and vibrant which I believe is something that he would have definitely bought interesting and new and different to the Superman vision that he had I think everyone thought that maybe he would have made it a dark and broody and almost made him like yeah done the same of what he did with Superman of making it quite a Batman I mean sorry make it quite dark and that drab but coming off of Mars Attacks we can see that Tim Burton can do vibrant he can do bright he can do this kind of wacky off-the-wall stuff so it would have definitely have been interesting but with the hiring of Tim Burton came the unfortunate firing of Kevin Smith and this is where Kevin Smith takes a bow from the proceedings of Superman lives with Kevin Smith now off the film Tim Burton had called upon an old friend and writing partner who had worked with on the Batman films in Wesley Strick by his own admission Strick unlike Kevin Smith was not a comic book fan and just saw this as another job throughout the production he was eventually fired and Dan Gilroy was brought on to carry on with the writing of the film in part Dan Gilroy was brought on to the film because Wesley Strick's script had just blown the budget up way too much and with Dan Gilroy on board he had brought the budget down from 140 million dollars to a reasonable 100 million dollars that Warner Brothers could seem to stomach and move forward with and in the script with all the ones that have come before it and to this point the basic plot from what we know is that doomsday with the help of Lex Luthor and Brainiac manages to kill Superman and he is brought back to life by Kryptonian technology that resuscitates him and he goes back to I guess probably fight them and defeat them and there would have been like a lot of the stuff that about about this is a lot of visual imagery out there so I implore you guys to get online and look at like the kind of conceptual art for this supposed film because it is great there was plans that so like let's get into the casting of this so the casting of this lowest lane would have been played by Sandra Bullock which would have been great Brainiac would have been played by Christopher Walken again amazing casting and Lex Luthor would have been played by Kevin Spacey who eventually did go on to play Lex Luthor in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns but yeah Kevin Spacey I'm sure as a lot of you know has come out of that he's a piece of shit I believe yeah yeah I don't really want to get into that but yeah it's stuff's come out I'm sure you're all aware of that and obviously Superman would have been played by our man of the moment the guy the reason this whole fucking podcast is this Nicholas Cage which from what I have like researched and I've watched the documentary The Death of Superman Lives What Happened by John Schnep and it's fucking great and there's some amazing footage in that where you see that the vision that Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage had for Superman is to really focus in on the fact that he was an alien from another planet and kind of explore that way of dealing with it not so much that he's just this man of steel someone who cannot be killed who has one weakness but more that he's it's almost like Clark Kent is the weirdo and Superman is the normal one almost that like he feels alien in his own body let alone it's like when he gets the kind of flourish with his alien ways of obviously all the Kryptonian the Kaleil side of him is Superman whereas Clark Kent is him suppressing that and that is almost the alien part of him but I think it would have been fucking great I know there's a lot of speculation out there people like Nicholas Cage as Superman no I'm not buying it but who better to play Superman a man who has actually named one of his sons Kaleil a man who looks alien we have seen that he can be bizarre he can be off the wall he could be mad cat he would have been a perfect Superman in my eyes I am kind of saddened that we never got to see this film there's a lot of speculation that it could have been turned into an animated film but it's not simple as that yeah you can't just turn a script that is intended for screen and this film got all the way up to three weeks before shooting began when it was sadly shut down and remain dead and I believe will remain dead this project will never never ever get off the ground because obviously we now have man of steel back man of the Superman just in a couple of weeks we have the Justice League so the death of Superman Superman lives will be dead forever it will never see the light of day and that's a really sad prospect to me like I feel like this would have in the wake of obviously superhero films now just think about if this kind of way of doing it with these multiple characters is multiple this cinematic universe could have been kick started in 1999 or 98 when roughly this film would have come out and it would have been great and I feel like it would have been fresh it would have been new and for you naysayers out there just really just take a moment to sit down and really think about like Nicholas Cage like I know a lot of people can't get past a lot of like the latter day stuff that he's kind of become a online joke almost he's just a he's a meaming himself and I feel like that is that is one of the reasons he's kind of you don't really see him do that many interviews and doesn't open up a lot of stuff um listening to podcasts and other stuff trying to get as much information about what happened with um Superman lives Nicholas Cage has got to a point where he just doesn't talk about this uh John Senepper's mentioned that he tried to get Nicholas Cage to talk about his experience and he's like I'm past it like Tim Burton as well was someone who's very hard to he kind of at point didn't want to talk about it because it's been so hard it's been such a like turbulent time and like he literally got to the point where he was about to make the film like he'd done all the hard work he'd done all the fun stuff we're just getting up to the up to the starting line of actually the only thing they didn't do was film it which I imagine would be a long arduous task they had the script in place even sets were being built they had the cast they literally had it ready to go and it shut down but why did it shut down that is a question I want to ask and there are some answers there's a few there's a few possible reasons well I feel like there's many factors that came into play uh one of them was that Warner Brothers just wasn't having a good time at the box office that year films were flopping left right and center so obviously a large investment film like this taking a risk on someone like Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage to produce this superhero epic would have been a very very risky move they just didn't want to roll the dice on it the budget as well they believe the budget was too high and just trimming it and trimming it and I just don't think they had the faith in Tim Burton didn't have the faith in Nicholas Cage didn't have the faith in the writers and they just didn't feel like the script was good enough and then back to our friend John Peters he jumped ship and moved over to produce a film called Wild West which turned out that the money that was going to be used for Superman lives was quickly pumped into Wild Wild West I'm not sure if you guys have seen this film um I believe it was released in 1999 or 98 starring Will Smith, Kevin Klein and Kenneth Branagh and if you watch that film right into the end you see that Will Smith and Kevin Klein fight Kenneth Branagh's villain in a giant spider so John Peters eventually got what he wanted those three rules he had for Kevin Smith kind of paid off because obviously there was no Superman costume in this film well why would they be it's not a Superman film there's no flying well not from what I can remember but there is a giant steam punk mechanical spider so I bet somewhere out there even now John Peters goes to sleep at night with a big old smile on his face and then that he got his spider but also somewhere out there Nicholas Cage and Tim Burton probably go to sleep with a niggling thought in the back of their minds of what could have been what could have soared could it have been a bird could it have been a plane no it could have been Superman lives but we will never know what the life of that film would have been we just know about his early demise and as I said that saddens me that we will never see what could have been out there in the ether that that could have happened but it doesn't have to we don't have to make them it's still interesting and that's the tale of Superman lives sorry again that this episode was late but as promised I'm still really set this week it's Friday now and this will be going up as soon as I've finished recording and yeah I will be back with you next Tuesday I was meant to have a guest of Brett Jones from the Hardest Part of the Ring podcast for the family man but things just have work out life has got in the way so I'll be doing this one solo but tomorrow I'm going to see my family so I thought what better way to watch that film then I'm going to watch it on the train on my way there and on my way back so yeah I'll have that ready for you next Tuesday so things will be back to normal it'll just be regular episodes from then on help December might be a bit fun I've got some fun episodes planned for then but until then it's just going to be back to chronological cage I'm going to be raging with that cage the gloves are going to be off we're going to be having a fun old time me Nicholas Cage and whatever else pops up any any cast of clowns and fun people and fun directors I know I've got some fun ones coming up but yeah see you next Tuesday for the family man and as always I've been petr in place she's the right shows the right audiences the right format then watch the data tell you it worked you're not buying impressions you're buying influence learn more by visiting a cast dot com slash advertised this podcast is presented by the breadcrumbs collective home the potholes in a cast cage in copal connections a drip tunnel in remain franchise and many more to come our shows are all presented ad-free and be possible by listeners like you please support our shows by subscribing leaving ratings and reviews and becoming patrons at patreon.com if you like to learn more about 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