8 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Superman For Everyone

There have been a lot of famous comic book movie cancellations over the years, but none more chaotic or notorious than Superman Lives.

One of two failed Superman projects to emerge in between the release of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Superman Returns, Superman Lives (formerly Superman Reborn) was put into production in the 1990s with Tim Burton attached to direct and Nicolas Cage (who's actually a massive comic book fan, and even named his son Kal-El), in the role of the Man of Steel.

The film itself was primarily inspired by the Death of Superman arc from the early 1990s (a comic Batman v Superman would also lift inspiration from), and would've seen Brainiac, Lex Luthor and Doomsday as the main villains. Several treatments of the film were developed by different writers, with one in particular, Kevin Smith, eventually leaving the project once Burton came aboard and decided he wanted greater ownership of the story.

Smith has revealed key details about Superman Lives' troubled production in the years since it fell apart, but if anything could sum up just how weird a project it was, then it would have to be producer Jon Peters' desire for Smith to insert a giant spider - among other, offensively reasoned things - into the story. This same spider would eventually show up in 1999's Wild Wild West, also produced by Peters.