The 1990s never-made movie “Superman Lives” achieved such cult status, with fans fascinated by the story behind the film that was supposed to star Nicolas Cage as the very alien Man of Steel, that a cameo appearance was inserted into “The Flash” movie in 2023.
Tim Burton, who was set to direct that film, recently participated in an interview with the British Film Institute, in which he discusses his feelings about that sequence and Warner Bros. approach to both Nicolas Cage’s Superman and Michael Keaton’s Batman.
When asked if he still held any regrets about “Superman Lives,” Burton responded by saying, “No, I don’t have regrets. I will say this: when you work that long on a project and it doesn’t happen, it affects you for the rest of your life. Because you get passionate about things, and each thing is an unknown journey, and it wasn’t there yet. But it’s one of those experiences that never leaves you, a little bit.”
“But also it goes into another AI thing, and this is why I think I’m over it with the studio. They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it. Even though you’re a slave of Disney or Warner Brothers, they can do whatever they want. So in my latter years of life, I’m in quiet revolt against all this.”
Tim Burton needs to chill with some of these comments he doesn’t own these characters… while I enjoy Batman returns, I enjoy it as a tim burton movie and not a Batman movie. You could make the same ‘appropriation’ comments about that.