Back in 2002, J.J. Abrams had written a script titled “Superman: Flyby” which was in development at Warner Bros., with Brett Ratner hired as director. The film was eventually cancelled, reworked, with Bryan Singer coming on board to film “Superman Returns” instead.
New images have been posted online showing concept designs created for “Superman: Flyby”. Including some art of a potential costume design as well as images of both Krypton and Metropolis.
The script for the un-made “Superman: Flyby” film by J.J. Abrams is available for download (4.6mb PDF).
The artwork is pretty good, though I’m a bit put off by Krypton’s depiction.
I just remember reading this script online and wondering why it was aggressively not Superman. It was fine for “generic sci-fi film”, and along the lines of box office winners that eventually got made like “Jupiter Ascending”, but it was like the writers were mad at Superman.
I remember reading that both Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill had screen tested for this never made movie. Looking at the drawing of Superman, I can’t help but think that he was drawn to look like both of them. It’s as if they couldn’t decide between the two actors, so they drew a Superman that looked a bit like the both of them, so that they could decide which of the two actors resembles Superman the most. It’s just a thought. He might also look like Josh Harnett or Jim Caviezel.
Seems like it’s based on Hartnett to me. I know Ratner wanted him for the role initially.
I’ll have to read this. I’m not an Abrams fan based on his past work on both Star Wars and Star Trek as well as Alias BITD. It just doesn’t seem like he world-builds. Feels like his scripts are more emotion driven basing the movement of the plot on big moments designed to get an emotional reaction from the viewer.