Tim Burton’s legendary abandoned take on Superman, with Nicolas Cage in the famous red underpants, would have seen a man of steel stricken with psychological trauma, according to its screenwriter.
Dan Gilroy, currently promoting his new film Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal as a wannabe crime journalist, told IndieWire his take centred on an alienated Superman unaware of his identity as the last son of Krypton.
“I was very much taken by Tim’s approach, which was that Kal-El was not told by Jor-El, before he got put in the little spaceship, who he was or where he came from,” Gilroy told IndieWire. “So poor little Kal-El, when he winds up on earth, he has no freaking idea where he came from. His biggest fear is that he’s an alien.”
Added Gilroy: “Our Superman was in therapy at the beginning of the film. He can’t commit [to Lois Lane] because he doesn’t know who he is or what is going on with him. He’s hoping that he has some physiological condition that gives him these powers but that he’s still human. It becomes very apparent, though, early in the script, when Lex Luthor uncovers the remnants of the spacecraft, he suddenly realises – ‘Oh my god, I’m an alien.’ It was all about the psychological trauma of it. I loved it.”
The Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage Superman movie, reputedly titled Superman Lives, was intended for release in 1998. However, it was delayed and ultimately abandoned by Warner Bros when Burton decided to direct Sleepy Hollow instead.
The Batman film-maker has previously said of the project – and legendarily offbeat producer Jon Peters: “I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don’t really want to be working with.”
