Actor Nicolas Cage says that he hired Tim Burton for the scrapped Superman Lives movie, not the other way around. Cage is the Oscar-winning actor of such hits as The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, Leaving Las Vegas, Pig, and countless others throughout his filmography. The actor has only suited up for one superhero role, Ghost Rider, a character he appeared as in two films just prior to Disney and Marvel Studios taking over the property.
However, the prolific actor was also cast to play Superman in a story from Burton that had The Man Of Steel being killed and resurrected, just as had happened in the comics with The Death of Superman. Scripts for the Superman Lives film by Dan Gilroy, Wesley Strick, and Kevin Smith were written, costumes were tested and the film was well into pre-production before it was scrapped due to budgetary concerns and creative differences. Burton was long thought the man who was hired to spearhead the project, but Cage is now coming out and saying that wasn't quite the case.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Cage was asked about the possibility of bringing in his version of Superman now that the multiverse is set to debut within the DCEU, to which Cage firstly made clear that it was he who brought in Burton to the scrapped Superman project. According to Cage, Warner Bros initially wanted Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger director Renny Harlin to direct the film, but the actor was a big fan of Burton's Mars Attacks!, prompting him to push for him instead. Cage said that while Harlin was "perfectly capable," he felt that Burton was a better fit for his vision of Kal-El/Superman. Read his full quote:
"I have to be careful what I say about this stuff. What is it about comic books that [everything] just goes everywhere exponentially within split seconds? What I want to go on record with is: Tim Burton did not cast me. I cast Tim Burton. They wanted Renny Harlin, and he’s a nice guy and perfectly capable. But for me, the vision I had for Kal-El was more of a Tim Burton-style presentation universe."
Cage went on to say that the studio was "worried" about Mars Attacks! at the time, which ended up seeing disappointing box office numbers. Despite that, the studio hired Burton at Cage's request and then "shut the whole thing down." Cage has mixed feelings about the scrapped Superman Lives, saying he felt that it left the project up to "the real of imagination," but also stopped it from ever coming to fruition and putting his vision on the big screen. Cage admitted he had no doubt that his collaboration with Burton would have been "special."
The journey of Superman Lives was brilliantly covered by the late John Schnepp in his documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? which covers the scrapped project in depth. While the window to make the film as a live-action project has likely passed, there's been the suggestion of reviving the film as an animated DC film, which would bring the project to life partially. However, with the multiverse taking affect soon, it's entirely possible that Cage's Superman could be worked into the expanded universe in some way, which would be fun to see, one way or another. While Superman Lives likely won't fly with Cage and Burton at this stage and with the concept explored to some degree in Zack Snyder's Justice League, it will be curious to see if anything ever comes of the abandoned project, even if it's just a continual wonder of what could've been.
Source: Rolling Stone