Over the past few years, Tim Burton’s abandoned Superman movie Superman Lives has achieved a kind of legendary status, as various concept art and costume test photos and footage of Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel made its way online.
Burton initially planned to follow up his work on Batman and Batman Returns by turning his attention to the Last Son of Krypton. Burton spent a couple of years developing the project in the mid-90s before Warner Bros. decided to pull the plug, leaving fans to wonder what a Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage Superman movie would have been like.
Well, according to Cage, it would have been the Superman movie, and in fact, it already is, despite the fact it never saw the light of day!
“I would offer that the movie that Tim and I would have made, in your imagination, is more powerful than any of the Superman movies,” Cage told EW. “I didn’t even have to make the movie and we all know what that movie would have been in your imagination. That is the Superman. That is the movie. Even though you never saw it — it is the Superman.”
SEE ALSO: Huge batch of concept art from Tim Burton’s Superman Lives
Fans seem split as to whether Burton’s Superman Lives would have been a great outing for the Man of Steel, or an unmitigated disaster. Sadly we’ll never know for sure, but if you do want to learn more about the project, you can find the definitive story in the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?.
Originally published September 15, 2017. Updated March 4, 2020.
