It looks like Ben Affleck’s relationship with superhero movies could have been a lot different if it weren’t for an unfortunate disagreement about a cancelledSupermanfilm. That’s always the way, isn’t it? Somebody has a great idea, somebody else agrees, then they clash on some of the details and suddenly Rami Malek is playing Freddie Mercury.
Kevin Smith, as a director, is kind of a geek icon. Not only was he behind classics likeClerksandChasing Amy, but he regularly touts his own fandom for comic books as a guest director on shows likeThe Flashandthe recently concludedSupergirl. He even named his daughter “Harley Quinn Smith” after the comic book character of the same name (and with the fantastically violent animated show on HBO Max that everybody needs to watch). So it should come as no surprise that he’s made his attempts to break into the game of comic book movies, perhaps most famously with a cancelledSupermanfilm.
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In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Smith recently went into detail about his unfortunately fruitless attempt to put up aSupermanmovie based on the comic book series “The Death of Superman” with none other than Affleck in the title role. Right from the beginning, that was the actor he intended for the part. “I was writing it for Affleck. Ben was heating up. Like he was there. I think he’d been hired forArmageddon,” Smith said. “He’s built like a superhero, built like a giant action figure, particularly with the height. And then he puts on the muscles there too. So in my head and heart, it was always Ben and Michael Rooker.” So not only did he want Affleck to play the hero, but he also wantedfutureGuardians of the GalaxystarRooker as the cunning and ruthless Lex Luthor.
As wonderful as these eclectic casting choices sound, apparently they didn’t sit well with the project’s producer Jon Peters. To give an idea of what sort of person he is, he was recently portrayed via a magically eccentric performance by Bradley Cooper in thePaul Thomas Anderson filmLicorice Pizza. In a similarly unexpected move, Peters actually wanted to cast Sean Penn in the lead part. “[Peters] goes, ‘Look in his eyes in that movie, he’s got haunted eyes, the eyes of a killer,'” Smith said. “And I was like, ‘Dude, it’s Superman. Like, you know, that’s not how most people think of Superman’…But he wanted to reinvent it. He wanted something gritty, graphic, and grown-up. He essentially wanted like what Zack Snyder eventually did.”
This resulted in plenty of friction, and ultimately, the project (set to be titledSuperman Lives) was taken over by Tim Burton before eventually being canceled altogether. Some may recall that the film, under Burton, would have starredhuman curiosity Nicolas Cageas Superman. So that’s one more surreal experience taken from fans before it even had a chance.
Of course, Affleck did eventually get his chance to join the superhero genre as Batman inBatman v Superman,Justice League, and his upcomingfinal appearance as the character inThe Flash. Plus, he actually got to wear the iconic Superman outfit while playing the character’s original actor George Reeves in the 2006 neo-noir period filmHollywoodland. Whether that works as a consolation prize is debatable. But it’s still fascinating to think about what might have been.
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