Earlier this fall, we got a look at some photos for some of the Superman costumes being developed for director Tim Burton’s aborted Superman Lives project. At the time, I wasn’t very impressed with what we were looking at, but this is marginally better. I still don’t think that this is the proper way to go for a Superman film, but it would have been interesting to see in some other film.
So why was Burton looking at tacking away from the traditional red, blue and yellow Superman outfit?
My guess is that this suit is from a section of the movie after Superman has been believed to have been killed by the rampaging alien Doomsday. When Burton was hired, producers were looking at loosely adapting the popular 1990s comic arc “The Death of Superman.” Kevin Smith had done the most recent drafts of the screenplay at the time, and in it after Superman is laid to rest he is encased in a special suit of Kryptonian origin which helps him regenerate. Of course, one of the first things that Burton did once aboard the project was to toss out Smith’s draft and bring in Wesley Strick (who had done an uncredited polish on Burton’s Batman Returns), though presumable the story would have stayed the same.
Ultimately, Warner Brothers would spend about $30 million dollars on Burton’s version and fans would have to wait almost a decade more before seeing Superman back on the big screen.
