It’s not a surprise that Kevin Smith pitched an idea for a “Superman” film back in the ‘90s. The filmmaker has talked about his meetings with producer Jon Peters at length about just how crazy the version of ‘Superman’ was that Warner Bros. was working on at the time. But in a recent interview with Yahoo, Smith goes a bit deeper, talking about who he envisioned in the roles of Superman and Lex Luthor, as well as who Peters wanted to see as the lead.
According to Smith, when he was pitching the idea of what would become “Superman Lives,” his original idea was to write it with Ben Affleck in mind as the superhero. He previously worked with Affleck on “Mallrats” and knew he was perfectly built for the character. Then he wanted a bit of a “Mallrats” reunion with Michael Rooker as Lex Luthor.
“I was writing it for Affleck,” Smith said. “Ben was heating up. Like he was there. I think he’d been hired for ‘Armageddon.’ Affleck, he’s a fucking giant, like he’s built like a superhero, built like a giant action figure, particularly with the height. And then he puts on the muscles there too. So in my head and heart, it was always Ben and Michael Rooker.”
But eccentric Peters (who is portrayed by Bradley Cooper in Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, “Licorice Pizza”) had other ideas. Namely, Peters wanted a dark, gritty version of Superman and thought Sean Penn was the right guy to bring that to life. At the time, Penn was coming off an Oscar nomination for “Dead Man Walking.”
“[Jon Peters] goes, ‘Look in [Penn’s] eyes in that movie, he’s [got] haunted eyes, the eyes of a killer.’ And I was like, ‘Dude, it’s Superman. You know, that’s not how most people think of Superman,’” Smith added. “But he wanted to reinvent it. He wanted something gritty, graphic, and grown-up. He essentially wanted like what Zack Snyder eventually did [in ‘Man of Steel,’ ‘Batman v Superman’ and ‘Justice League,’ which coincidentally featured Affleck as Batman opposite Henry Cavill’s Superman].”
Obviously, as we know, “Superman Lives” never took off. Though, as every new layer of information peels back about the project, it becomes more and more wild and interesting. You almost wish WB would have given the green light just to see it happen. Or at least make an animated version of the Kevin Smith script just for sheer madness’ sake. Also, if you’re interested, there’s more to the story in the 2015 doc, “The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened?”