Helt tilbage i 1998 var det faktisk relativt tæt på at Tim Burton fik lov til at lave en Superman-film, og dengang var det meningen at selveste Nicolas Cage skulle spille hovedrollen. Hvordan filmen og ideen blev til, og hvordan det hele blev lukket ned er allerede blevet detaljeret i den ret fede dokumentar "The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened?".
Men selve processen er dog værd at dvæle lidt ved. I et interview med Rolling Stone fortæller Cage nemlig, at det faktisk var ham selv der startede hele projektet, og at han "castede" Burton som instruktør:
"What I want to go on record with is: Tim Burton did not cast me. I cast Tim Burton. They wanted [Die Hard 2/Cliffhanger director] Renny Harlin, and he's a nice guy and perfectly capable. But for me, the vision I had for Kal-El was more of a Tim Burton-style presentation universe. I was a big fan of Mars Attacks! The studio was worried about Mars Attacks! But they hired Tim per my request, and then they shut the whole thing down. That's always been both a positive and a negative to me. It's a positive in that it left the character, and what Tim and I might have gotten up to, in the realm of imagination — which is always more powerful than that is concrete. And a negative in that I think it would have been special. Is there a chance? Who knows. I don't know. [Laughs.] To answer your question, I don't know."
Det er en interessant historie, uden tvivl.