For over a year there has been a debate over the quality of the latest Superman film, Man of Steel. Typically the debate is over whether the movie was pretty good or really good. It is easy to forget how long it took to get another viable vision of Superman on the big screen.

Before Superman Returns in 2006, there had not been a Superman movie since 1988’s disaster, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. In that film, Christopher Reeves battled a villain concocted for the big screen called Nuclear Man and it was even more terrible then it sounds. The Superman movie franchise was indeed dead.

In the early 1990’s, DC Comics ran their famed The Death of Superman storyline in hopes of reinvigorating interest in the character. Due to this resurgence, Warner Bros picked up the rights and began development on a film called Superman Lives. Countless actors and writers were involved in the development of the film including Tim Burton (Batman, Alice in Wonderland), Kevin Smith (Comic Book Men, Clerks), Chris Rock and many others that will having you scratching your head trying to figure out how the pieces fit. The film was spearheaded by notorious executive Jon Peters, who gave mandates and ideas based on factors such as, toy sales and personal fetishes.

Filmmaker Jon Schnepp is finally uncovering the whole outlandish story in his new documentary titled, The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? It is pretty amazing that he was able to wrangle all the main talent involved to come back and essentially laugh at themselves and the terrible movie they were preparing to make. It should give you a new-found appreciation for the state of comic book movies today and the DC Universe as a whole. Check it out:

 

Source: CBM