DJariya

Now available. Screw it. Decided to purchase a digital copy. Only care about the movie and none of the extras, so I got the basic $14.99 edition.

You can watch it on your PC or on the Roku with the VHX app. Or you can watch it on your IPhone or Chromecast. I got the Roku App and it's playing great. Will try to watch a little tonight before bed.

Total running time is 104 minutes.

d2cheer

Please provide a summary when done!!!

The Valeyard

This was crowd-funded several times by Schnepp. He raised over $115,000 the first time then another $85,000 (on another site) once the project had been delayed. Two years later, while the original backers were still waiting to see something, Schnepp showed it to everyone else on the planet first. Apparently, he felt that the backers would probably pirate it if they saw it first.

devilshalo

A handful of those people were at the premiere screening. What's funny is when you take a look at the acknowledgement credits, they almost run as long as the doc.

stingermck

They tweeted this out yesterday:

fumanstan

That cod piece... I couldn't help it, it's distracting.

VHS?

After watching this, I now wish this had actually been made.
I think the early picture of Cage is what made everyone think it was a pile of shit. It's a horrible picture, sure, but what I took away from this was this would have been visually fun and an interesting take on Superman himself from Cage. All the wild ideas and concepts had me intrigued.

RocShemp

What's up with the abs on the suit? Looks like a bunch of testicles pointed at each other.

PhantomStranger

That photo looks vaguely similar to Superman's comic book look for the mass market during the mid-90s. Superman had longer hair and the overly ripped abs were popular across the industry in the aftermath of Image comics.

Cage is a hardcore comic book collector and was a true Superman fanatic long before he was up for the role. That is pretty much the entire reason why the movie got as far as it did in production. Once you can attach a big star to a movie, pretty much anything can and will get made in Hollywood. It's how we end up with so many lame blockbusters. I doubt the producers ever bother with Superman if Cage wasn't pushing for the role.

EctoCooler

At least the colors are right. The blue on Routh's suit was too light and the red was this ugly dark, blood color.

The Infidel

That scene in the graveyard for the documentary was actually footage Tim Burton shot, but they used his wife's chiropractor.

EddieMoney

Hmm, might buy it to watch through VHX. I can see this hitting Netflix very soon, though.

bluetoast

Did it switch from day to night repeatedly as well?

Supermallet

My first reaction was also "At least they got the colors right!"

Kal-El

Almost done watching. That flying test with ILM was pretty impressive.

And about halfway thru, you *do* end up wishing for this to have been made.

I wonder if there's similar available behind the scenes stuff like this for Wright's Ant-Man.

But I guess we wouldn't know for another 20 years. :-p

Shannon Nutt

I bought the $30 version this weekend and watched it on my Roku through VHX.

I liked the movie a lot...what it lacks in terms of good filmmaking (this is basically just a talking heads movie with some VERY cheesy "recreations" of scenes that never were shot) it more than makes up for in the quality of the interviews - although it gets REALLY annoying seeing director Jon Schnepp nodding his head over and over and over again during the interview segments.

The bonus material is just as good as the movie, so if you splurge on this, definitely get the edition with all the bonus materials. There's two separate commentary tracks, 38 minutes of deleted scenes and two Kevin Smith interview segments clocking in at 44 minutes each...and those are just the ones I got a chance to watch so far...there's a lot more.

The biggest revelation to me from watching the film is that Jon Peters isn't nearly the wacko that Kevin Smith has made him out to be over the years. Yeah, he doesn't know a whole lot about what makes Superman Superman, but he seems like a level-headed guy who really wanted to make a good movie...although he doesn't deny that he wanted that big spider.

I give it a solid B, or 3 out of 5 stars...a star more if you're a big Superman fan.

Kal-El

I think it's a bit more than just talking heads and the cheesy recreations. All the behind the scenes stuff with the costume design tests they had to do over and over, along with the concept art really give you an idea of how the movie would have looked.

I thought the opposite. I thought this reinforced the notion that he's a total nut. And it's all done in the editing. They usually start with one of the concept artists or DiBonaventura describing something then the punchline would be Peters' view on it which oftentimes was hilarious.

I also found it pretty sad that the day of the final costume test (pictured above) was the day they got word that the production was shutdown.

Solid Snake

You mean like writing a script and making the test footage?

RocShemp

I never understood why Routh's suit had the Drunk Superman colors.

zero

that is something they did to it in post....



It's actually very bright, the trunks and cape are muted a bit..why I'm not sure

RocShemp

The dried blood reds and brown mustard yellows still scream Drunk Superman. As for why only the blue was bright (relatively speaking) is because the costume designer insisted that blue should be the only bright color in his costume. She said it would look to busy otherwise. I believe she's interviewed in one of the special features. Or I may have read it in an article where she was quoted. All I recall is that the color scheme for the costume was her idea and Singer agreed to it.

Oh and the color correction in that video is actually from a fan edit. It says so in the info. The colorful version is not the originally footage. It's the color boosting the fan editor did. Similar to the "What if Man of Steel were in color?" video.

PhantomStranger

Even if Hollywood didn't hate pure comic book colors, I've heard muted colors are practically necessary for the CGI scenes to blend correctly.

RocShemp

This thread made me revisit my HD-DVD (my god is that thing finicky as hell!) of Superman Returns. I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I remembered. There are still issues (like Kevin Spacey should have been allowed to go full on evil like when he was on the New Krypton continent instead of delivering a poor imitation of Gene Hackman as he did through the bulk of the movie) despite some exciting/fun moments to be had (the plane rescue, the bank heist, super rescues across Metropolis during the climax). For instance, the movie cannot escape the overarching theme of Superman's sense of alienation made worse by his abandoning his family and loved ones in hopes of finding Krypton still intact. It's an interesting topic but far too dour for the first Superman movie in decades. But then Man of Steel also continued the dour tone. I am all for Superman existing in a dark modern world but he should be a ray of sunshine in contrast to whatever bleak world you place him in.

That really doesn't help in any way. Crappy CGI is crappy CGI (same for green screen), no matter how much you desaturate the colors. Just look at how much the CGI model of Brandon Routh stands out (in a bad way) during some flying shots of Superman Returns (or any movie with the ocassional rushed CGI effect).

Solid Snake

Those eyes of CGI Routh...lol.

EddieMoney

Nic Cage has given some truly awful performances. And some truly great ones. What is common among them is that he always gives it his all, and I would have loved to have seen his take on Superman. Can anyone imagine him playing Superman like he did his character in Deadfall? Would have been the greatest film ever made.