When I was just a humble Warner Bros. Studio Tour Guide 2012, the entire department was talented a rare treatment: a trip to the studio archive. When we went out to a non -description airport hangar, we toured the most valuable with WB artifacts, an elite that few of which rotate on the display at the Lot’s Museum.
The building was similar to the warehouse at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” With rows and rows of boxed and archived treasures. My eyes darted furiously as if I was looking for the union. Boxes were noticed with legendary names: “Bette Davis” and “Errol Flynn.” A cooling room held a trove of “Gremlins.” We were told that a bundle of walls was Monica’s apartment from “Friends.” A room was only devoted to vehicles (“image cars”), from Batmobiles to the Argo ship – no, not the “Argo” – the one from 1979 Jack the Ripper Time Travel Adventure “Time After Time.”
The most exciting object was held in a box, which was open in turn, with the content standing high. On a mannequin doll was a slightly worn red and blue outfit, groundbreaking in the punk style of the 90s. Our guide informed us that it was prototype Nicolas Cage Costume from 1998 Tim Burton “Superman Lives’ movie … a filmOf course, it never happened.
A few years later in 2015 I had a chance to see a screening of “Supermanna’s death: What happened?” at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood. This excellent documentary, directed by The Late Jon SchneppBe a real fan experience – not that I am a rabid fan, but when something is done with the kind of love that the special doctor was, it is tough not to catch the enthusiasm.
It is a movie about an aborted movie worth visiting or visiting for the first time, and that is currently Available on Youtube. Through concept art, exhaustive interviews with all the major players (minus cage, but including Burton, costume designer Atwood and the first draft script writer Kevin Smith) and behind the scenes test films, Schnepp was able to create a fairly stellar representation of what a Burton-directed superman can blanket as. In the end, it also manages to do even the most skeptical viewers, “Well … maybe …” because it blinks a rather striking photo of cage in what is (I believe) The suit that I saw shows inside the archives. His last costume tests, by the way, were shot on the day they pulled in the film. It was so close to walking in front of the cameras.
Cage would eventually have a very fast como as one of a multivers of super men during 2023’s “The Flash.” In a later interview he said he spent only three hours on set For that movie, with Ezra Miller in the lead role as a title character. “When I went to (see) the picture, it was me who fought against a gigantic spider. I didn’t. It wasn’t what I did,” He explained to Yahoo! Entertainment. “I don’t think it was (created by) AI. I know Tim (Burton) is upset by AI, as I am. It was CGI, OK, so they could ward off me, and I fight against a spider. I did none of it, so I don’t know what happened there.”
Burton has never had a chance to even briefly review the character, something he said He had regret over in a 2023 BFI interview. “When you work so long on a project and it doesn’t happen, it affects you for the rest of your life,” he said. “Because you get passionate about things, and every thing is an unknown trip, and it wasn’t there yet. But it’s one of the experiences that never leave you, a little.”
While I cannot relate drama behind the scenes to the extent that “the death of Superman lives“It is capable, is enough to say that someone who is curious to look at or making a deep dive on the various scripts and smatting of artifacts remaining from the production (a concept even ended in the movie “Wild Wild West“) will go away with a strong impression – especially by Producer Jon Petersthat eventually would stop producing “Superman Returns.”
Among the future film’s alien aspects-or at least things that sound strange afterwards-are giant brain spiders, Suggested “Superman” Basket shortsAnd a power register suit. Not all of this would have happened, but Geez would have been something.
I couldn’t take pictures of the fateful day I saw Nicolas Cage costume, but it lives on in my memory. And somehow that memory – weak and unclear – can exceed everything that Tim Burton might have created.
Take a watch on the doctor if you have some free time.
