10 Things You Need To Know About Tim Burton's Superman Lives

4. ...Alongside Lex Luthor

Thankfully, it didn't look like Tim Allen was going to be left with all the heavy lifting, villainy-wise. In fact there's more similarities between this aborted project and the eventual Superman Returns, with Kevin Spacey in line as the favourite to play Lex Luthor as early as Tim Burton's take on the Man Of Steel.

Considering he killed it in Returns (he was the best thing about it), this was the one inspired bit of casting the film had. Having Luthor playing second fiddle to Braniac was an interesting move.

In most of the Christopher Reeve Superman films Gene Hackman's antagonist was similarly behind the scenes, manipulating other, more powerful enemies to do his bidding €“ i.e, to eradicate the Man Of Tomorrow. So again, in most versions of the Superman Lives script it's Luthor whose space probe invites Braniac down to Earth, on the basis that the supervillain wants some Kryptonian battery or another for some reason, and Superman's his best shot.

Eventually they double cross each other...except in Burton's script, where they eventually merge into a single entity dubbed "Luthiac". Which would have been awful.