What Could’ve Been
Believe it or not, Nic Cage was at one point set to play Superman. I say this with much sadness, for that never came to pass. Superman Lives, which would’ve been set to release in 1998 would have featured Cage as Clark Kent/Supes, an all black suit, a giant spider, and polar bears.
Why did this masterpiece never get made?
1) It became a toy show. For the Superman suit, kids were brought in to decide which variant of a black suit they should use based on its toyability.
2) Tim Burton is kind of a douche. He was hired to direct the script Kevin Smith (Clerks) wrote. And so of course he had a huge rewrite done. And was a jerk to Kevin Smith. And almost doubled the budget from $100M to $190M, spending $30M on almost nothing, since the script never even ended up finished.
3) Nic Cage is better than Superman.
And from what I understand, the giant spider portion of the script ended up in the movie Wild Wild West.