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Today I’m reviewing The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened?

Short Synopsis:

The Death of Superman Lives; What Happened? delves into one of Hollywood’s most enthralling ‘what could have been’ stories. In 1996, Warner Brothers engaged Kevin Smith to write the screenplay (‘Superman Lives’). Director Tim Burton assembled an elite group of artists to work on Superman Lives, including Nicolas Cage as Superman. Warner Brothers scrapped the project shortly before principal photography began.**

Non-Spoiler Review:

Jon Schnepp goes on the hunt to find out what really happened to the lost property of Superman Lives. He contacts and sits down with a lot of people involved with the pre-production of the movie and find out their story. If you’re a fan of Superman and would like to know more about a DC property that never got a chance then check out this documentary.

This movie review of The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? contains possible spoilers. You’ve been warned.

** Warning, Possible Spoilers!!!! **

The Good:

Jon Schnepp did a great job hashing out the different stories told about Superman Lives and the various steps until its demise. You see the genuine interest in Schnepp and his quest to find the truth. He’s able to get a lot of folks to sit down and talk about this property. He interviewed folks like Tim Burton (director), Kevin Smith (1st screenwriter), Dan Gilroy (3rd screenwriter), Jon Peters (producer) and Colleen Atwood (costume designer) to name a few.

After watching this documentary I kind of wanted to see the movie. At first I wouldn’t want to watch the Superman Lives movie directed by Tim Burton because it seemed like it was all over the place. The vision of Tim Burton was interesting but would have been hard to market to the general population. All of the die hart fans would see it but the cost alone would have been too much. I can say this though… a lot of the concepts mentioned in Superman Lives went on to show up in either the animated DC movies or TV show series. If you don’t believe me then watch Justice League Unlimited for BrainLex for starters.

The side dramatizations during the interviews were entertaining and at times hilarious. You get to see what some of the interviewees were talking about and get a greater picture of scenes. It’s hard to just visualize it on your own without something that helps you out a bit.

It was extremely interesting to see the different things that could get a movie scrapped. Seeing the multiple movies in the 90’s hit drastically under their mark was shocking. The way how the visuals for this documentary was setup was nicely done. It was very cool to see the opening credits just because it reminded me of Richard Donner’s Superman.

The Bad:

The only thing that lowered the score for this documentary was not having Nicholas Cage do a sit down interview. After hearing the various decision makers say their piece about the project it would have been great to hear from the main star. It looks like Nic Cage was very invested in the process and hearing his thoughts about Superman Lives would have been a great 360 degrees view of things.

A thing that bothered me a little was the syncing of the audio after the halfway mark of the movie. It was maybe 1 or 2 seconds behind the video. I’m not sure if this was intentional but it did stick out a little.

The Hypothetical:

It would be a different documentary… I can’t think of anything else besides a talk with Nicholas Cage that would have increased this great documentary about the Superman Lives movie. Well done Jon Schnepp!

Questions of the week: What are your thoughts about this documentary? Would you have liked to see Superman Lives on the big screen?

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**Provided by RottenTomatoes.com