I just read this long article buzzing around. It's a pretty good description of what's wrong with Hollywood. The movie "Superman Returns" will cost $320-390 million and it took them 19 years to make it. "Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga" is a very funny story with an impressive line-up of people involved.

Some quotes: WB turned the project over to their pet producer Jon Peters—an illiterate, violence-prone wild man (I wish I was making this up, but I’m not—this is all true, every word of it) who got his start as Barbra Streisand’s hairdresser/lover and produced the Tim Burton Batman films. Peters, who hates the classic Superman in every way imaginable, set out to reinvent Superman in the "sex, killing, rock & roll, and whatever movie was a hit last weekend" style that all of his movies are based in. So he hired Jonathan Lemkin to write the script. (...) Lemkin’s script—which even he proudly boasted was campy and silly—was scrapped because WB thought it was too similar to Batman Forever. So Peters hired porn veteran Gregory Poirier—who scripted Peters’ Rosewood, and has since written the bomb See Spot Run and served as writer-director on the much-derided Tomcats—to start over. Poirier’s script had an angst-ridden Superman visiting a shrink in order to deal with his feelings of being an outsider and a freak by virtue of his alien heritage, ditching his red and blues for a black suit, using Kryptonian martial arts, and being killed by a Doomsday who bled kryptonite, Brainiac, the Silver Banshee, and the Parasite.

Peters also hated the FX in the 1978 Superman film with Chris Reeve, so he wanted to get rid of Superman’s ability to fly. So Smith tried to get around this by portraying Superman as a red blur while in flight, creating a sonic boom every time he took off (he took this from The Dark Knight Returns). Peters then told Smith to have Brainiac fight polar bears at the Fortress of Solitude, demanding that the film be wall-to-wall action. Smith thought it was a stupid idea, so Peters said, "Then have Brainiac fight Superman’s bodyguards!" Smith responded, "Why the hell would Superman need bodyguards?" Peters wouldn’t let up, so Smith caved in and had Brainiac fight the polar bears.
Then Peters demanded that Brainiac give Luthor a hostile space dog as a gift, arguing that the movie needed a cuddly Chewbacca character that could be turned into a toy. Then, after watching Chasing Amy, Peters liked the gay black character in the film so much that he ordered Smith to make Brainiac’s robot servant L-Ron gay, asserting that the film needed a gay R2-D2 with attitude. Then Peters demanded that Superman fight a huge spider at the end of the film, which Smith refused to do—he used a "Thanagarian Snare Beast" instead.

Read: "Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga"

Tag: superman