Look, there's no denying that Superman III and IV were pretty terrible. (Though the very idea of Richard Pryor in a Superman movie is still enough to erase just a little bit of the ill will.) But don't worry, because everyone involved knew just how terrible those instalments were. So Warner Bros had the bright idea to reinvent the story and general tone of the franchise, digging it out of the low-budget tripe Cannon Films (who'd spearheaded Superman IV) was known for while using the Death of Superman comics storyline as inspiration (consider it the precursor to the ever-popular gritty reboot). They brought on the producer of Burton's Batman movies, as well as the screenwriter responsible for Demolition Man, made Doomsday the villain, and decided to start the film with Superman's death. All of which were super bold decisions, and all of which would have surely been better than literally every movie that's featured Superman since that time. But, oddly somewhat regrettably, the tanking of Batman And Robin led Warner to be a bit sheepish about more superheroes in general, leading to the project getting shelved (they eventually got their act together, ish). Of course, variations on a fifth Superman movie were bandied about soon thereafter, with Kevin Smith, McG, J.J. Abrams, and Nicolas Cage all coming in and out of the picture. So... yeah. This could have been all different kinds of awesome.
