The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? (2015)

The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?: Directed by Jon Schnepp. With Nicolas Cage, Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, Dan Gilroy. A documentary about the proposed 1998 Superman Lives feature film that would have starred Nicolas Cage.

“The infamous bomb to end all bombs, a doomed effort to relaunch the Superman franchise in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic Batman and Robin, never made it to principal photography. Ever since it was unceremoniously dumped back in 1998, the filmu0026#39;s been a secretive slab of buried pop trivia and this documentary, through interviews with virtually every guilty party, attempts to uncover what might have been. Facepalm-worthy mistakes abound, from overzealous producers with absurd requests to tripped-out directors with no affinity for the character to one of the single worst casting decisions in recent memory. Thereu0026#39;s no two ways about it: this was going to be a launchpad disaster, even worse than the slim shreds of leaked information may have led us to believe. The story of its abortion is fascinating, too, in the same way a slow-motion replay of a fatal F-1 crash might be. The documentary belabors many points, though, needlessly bloating its runtime, and the director/moderator is incessantly forced into most shots, which I found grating. As a slideshow of concept art and talking heads recollecting (often, stunningly, with fondness) the mistakes they were never given the chance to make, it provides a short-lived interest. The full duration is something of a chore to push through, however, and it really couldu0026#39;ve done with some critical editing before release.”