From A Financial Point-Of-View, did WB Drop The Ball With Superman Lives?

[Road Warrior]

If you look back at 1998, that was a ridiculously weak year for movies. Among the top 10 grossing movies were Armageddon, Doctor Dolittle, Deep Impact, Godzilla, and Patch Adams. Despite the quality of the movie, it's safe to say that Superman Lives would have killed. $300 million domestically is not out of the question. There was virtually no competition except for Saving Private Ryan and There's Something About Mary.

So, do you think that WB dropped the ball? At the end of the day, Superman Returns didn't accomplish anything. 4 years later we're no different than we were in 2003.

Superman Lives may or may not have sucked, but atleast it would have added fuel to the franchise.

 

[Wolfman]

They should have just go with it. It would have made it's money back for sure. Sigh...

 

[Webhead2006]

who knows how things would have been.

 

[Road Warrior]

who knows how things would have been.

It's true that no one knows for sure, but it's still a fact that it had way less competition than Superman Returns. Superman Lives was slated for June of 1998. That month the following movies were released: The Truman Show, A Perfect Murder, Six Days Seven Nights, Can't Hardly Wait, Dirty Work, The X-Files, Mulan, Doctor Dolittle, and Out of Sight. It would have dominated the entire month.

 

[Webhead2006]

yea it could have made alot of money and for superman if it was sucessful then. Maybe we wouldnt be in all the developmental and copyright battles with the families right now.

 

[Timstuff]

The movie probably would have been dumb as rocks but it would have made money.

 

[matrix_ghost]

It depends on how the movie would´ve been made IMO. This was 1998. CGI was just starting to get good but it was nowhere near the level of realism you get nowadays when it comes to CGI animation of humans .
If superhero movies with the right superhero action cost around 200 million minimum nowadays , imagine how expensive superman lives would´ve been back then. From what i´ve read of Superman Lives it does sound like a very expensive movie.

And it´s also a question if audiences would accept this version of superman. I mean we aren´t talking stuff like what happened in spider/man 3 with Sandman killing Uncle Ben. We are talking big changes such as
1 Supes not wearing the red blue yellow suit , which i believe was happening in Peters and Burtons versions.
2 Superman not flying

 

[Changeling]

he was gonna fly and he was gonna wear his regular suit towards the end

 

[Webhead2006]

i said it before even with all the crazy stuff i heard about superman lives over the years out of a curiousity i would have loved to see how it would have turned out if they did film it.

 

[Road Warrior]

imagine how expensive superman lives would´ve been back then.

That's why WB pulled the plug. They got nervous. But they should have taken the risk. The movie would have dominated 1998. $300 million for sure.

he was gonna fly and he was gonna wear his regular suit towards the end

People have a lot of mis-conceptions about Superman Lives. They pay too much attention to the whole Kevin Smith and Jon Peters fiasco. The reality is that Tim Burton was doing his own thing. He had worked with Peters on Batman and knew that he was full of [censored]. So, he ignored the dude. He brought on board he own writer (Wesley Stick) and just did his own thing. And ultimately it would have been Superman. Burton wasn't gonna mess with the character. He had Doomsday and stuff like that to Burton-ize. Superman was just gonna be Superman. As far as the black suit and all that, that was just when Superman was ressurrected. The rest of the time he was red and blue and flying around and all that.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

It would've done good opening weekend numbers but if it was as bad as it was rumored to be, the bad word of mouth would've killed it like it did Batman & Robin, and it would be remembered in the same way that movies like Wild Wild West are remembered today, something that Agonybooth.com would be making fun of with a "review".

 

[BestGirl]

^I agree. Supposedly, WB axed the movie after a disastrous Cage costume test. That doesn't bode well for what the final product would've been. A B&R-like disaster for Supes may well have killed the character off for good movie-wise.

 

[Bad Superman]

After watching some of the artwork Im curious on how the movie would've looked like on screen.

 

[Webhead2006]

yea i said it to even though alot of the stuff we heard about the project was crap i am still curious to see how it would have turned out as a film.

 

[san15]

Since the summer wasn't filled with superheroes back in 1998, I guess Superman would've been profitable due to the lack of competition.

 

[Jochimus]

After watching some of the artwork Im curious on how the movie would've looked like on screen.

I actually think some of the concept art for SUPERMAN LIVES might be salvageable - it might have to be refined a little bit only because a lot of that artwork has been online where every fan under the sun can see it for years, but WB paid for that stuff, so they may as well get some use out of it, I figure.