Shortly after being unable to get Superman V greenlit, Cannon Films went bankrupt and the film rights to Superman reverted to producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind, who wanted to take the franchise in a new direction, as highlighted by their imaginative title for the Man of Steel's next outing, Superman: The New Movie. The film was to star then-TV Superboy Gerard Christopher as the superhero in a script written by Ilya Salkind and Superboy writers Cary Bates and Mark Jones. The plot included many familiar elements to Superman fans including the bottled city of Kandor, parallel dimensions and Brainiac as the lead villain. Oh, and Superman was going to die and be reborn inside Kandor, even before The Death of Superman had been published by DC. Despite being originally slated for a Christmas 1991 release, the film was still in pre-production in 1994 and never ended up materialising, with Warner Bros. turning the project over to another, more infamous producer...
