The Insane Story of Tim Burton’s ‘Superman’ Movie

Through the years, there have been some very interesting DC Comics movies that were developed but never quite got made. Of those projects, the one that towers over all of them as the most interesting and the weirdest has to be Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, based on a script by Clerks’ Kevin Smith, produced by Hollywood legend Jon Peters, and starring Nicolas Cage as a totally new (and eventually totally dead) Man of Steel.

We did eventually get to (sort of) see Cage’s Superman in a brief cameo during The Flash. But the movie itself would have truly wild — and so was the story of this project’s tortured development. Ahead of the release of James Gunn’s Superman, we take a look back at Superman Lives, with all of its fighting polar bears and giant spiders galore.

Watch the insane story of the greatest Superman movie never made below:

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If you liked that video on the wild story of Tim Burton’s unmade Superman movie, watch more of our videos below, including one on James Gunn and DC’s movie Batman problem, one on all of the Easter eggs in the trailer for James Gunn’s Superman, and our breakdown of the previous Superman trailer. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes. James Gunn’s Superman is scheduled to open in theaters on July 11, 2025.