11 Terrible Early Drafts That Almost Ruined Iconic Villains

11. Lex Luthor €“- Superman

Man Of Steel was a great movie - flawed and occasionally empty-headed yes, but still very entertaining, and it did a lot to repair the damage caused by the fatally boring Superman Returns.

But in an alternate universe, the film never existed, as McG and JJ Abrams teamed up on their own Superman: Flyby project, which was never cancelled because McG was too scared to fly to Australia (allegedly) and which would probably have sealed the fate of Superman as a property, thanks to its silly decisions.

As well as a ludicrous Kryptonian karate fight at the end between supes and his murderous cousin, Abrams did his best to change some key details in a manner that should have kept him well away from both Star Trek and Star Wars. And chief among those decisions was how Abrams wrote Lex Luthor - not as the super-intelligent megolamaniac antagonist we know and loathe, but rather as a disgruntled CIA underling, whose beef with Superman comes from him inadvertently causing him to lose his job.

How many Superman fans have ever wanted Luthor stripped of power and dignity, and transformed into a snivveling lackey with a chip on his shoulder? Not this one, that's for sure.

Talk about a foolish attempt to bring real-life contexts into fiction...