Here there be spoilers.
First things first, I implore you to check out Film Crit Hulk's incredibly detailed story autopsy on Man of Steel. He talks a lot of sense, and whether you agree with him or not, it's a worthwhile read for anyone interested in story mechanics, and specifically the story mechanics of Superman. It's a long read, and the all-caps doesn't help, but hey, that's Hulk.
Who wrote it?
Who wrote it?
Gregory Poirier - credited on (amongst others) The Lion King 2, A Sound of Thunder and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
When was it written?
When was it written?
This draft is dated 12.12.95
How long is it?
How long is it?
122 pages
What's the broad structure?
What's the broad structure?
Act 1 = 1-27
Act 2a = 28-57
Act 2b = 58-98
Act 3 = 99-122
What's the context?
Act 2a = 28-57
Act 2b = 58-98
Act 3 = 99-122
What's the context?
Having tossed aside Jonathan Lemkin's take (allegedly for its thematic similarities to Batman Forever) Warner kept faith with Jon Peters to oversee the project. He hired his Rosewood screenwriter Gregory Poirier, a 1990 Nicholl Fellowship semi-finalist, to pen the new draft. Poirier seems to have written at least three drafts which have surfaced.
Why didn't it happen?
Why didn't it happen?
One man brought Superman Reborn down. Kevin Smith, writer/director of Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy, was at Warners for meetings with top brass over potential rewrite projects. Asked to assess the Poirier script (which draft isn't clear), Smith told them he hated it, calling it "The Batman TV show version of a Superman movie." (2:08 on the video).
Eventually sat down with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, head of production at Warner, Smith was handed the keys and told to go off in a new direction.
The Script
It's really tough to know where to start with Poirier's Superman Reborn, the last script to bear that title before the long-gestating project became Superman Lives.
Reading all three drafts illuminates plenty about the art, purpose and practicalities of rewriting to accommodate producer and studio notes. The second draft is dated just 8 days after this one, while the third and final (that we know of) is dated three months later, and clearly reflects the extra time allowed to polish and refine it. Ultimately, I decided that to maintain the structure of these pieces it would be better to address them all as different scripts.
So who's our protagonist?
Reading all three drafts illuminates plenty about the art, purpose and practicalities of rewriting to accommodate producer and studio notes. The second draft is dated just 8 days after this one, while the third and final (that we know of) is dated three months later, and clearly reflects the extra time allowed to polish and refine it. Ultimately, I decided that to maintain the structure of these pieces it would be better to address them all as different scripts.
So who's our protagonist?
He wants to belong.
This, once again, is a Superman for the '90s. An alien, feeling outcast and ostracised on Earth, and flirting with therapy. He doesn't feel this is his home, but knows he has nowhere else to go. In keeping with the previous drafts, there's a huge hole in his relationship with Lois, but here it appears to be less formally defined. They are clearly in love, but they're not "together" per se.
This, once again, is a Superman for the '90s. An alien, feeling outcast and ostracised on Earth, and flirting with therapy. He doesn't feel this is his home, but knows he has nowhere else to go. In keeping with the previous drafts, there's a huge hole in his relationship with Lois, but here it appears to be less formally defined. They are clearly in love, but they're not "together" per se.
What happens next?
The alien tyrant Brainiac arrives, looking for Kryptonian DNA to stabilise his genetic structure. Roaming the galaxy absorbing the DNA of other races, and destroying their worlds in the process, Brainiac's physical condition is slowly deterioriating as his genetic accumulations refuse to gel.
Brainiac unleashes Doomsday, an unstoppable monster with Kryptonite for blood, who kills the Man of Steel. But Doomsday forgets to bring back the body, and it subsequently goes missing, so Brainiac turns to two Earthly accomplices, Silver Banshee and Parasite, for help. Enveloping Metropolis in an energy field to prevent removal of the body, Brainiac demands its delivery within 48 hours, or he will destroy the city with his annihilator.
Somewhere deep under water, another alien, called Cadmus, has the body on a slab, and is busy putting his own plans for it into action when Superman unexpectedly wakes up...
Does Superman resolve his conflict, and if so, how?
Does Superman resolve his conflict, and if so, how?
When Superman awakens, his powers have vanished. Learning from Cadmus that his abilities actually derive from a Kryptonian martial discipline known as Phin-Yar (though this is never really explained), Superman is forced to confront the notion that they have disappeared because, essentially, he doesn't want them anymore. Faced with the prospect of a normal life, he still feels duty-bound to save the city, and begins breaking Brainiac's hold by using a mechanical suit which replicates all his old powers. But as the suit begins to fail, and the countdown to Metropolis' destruction ticks away, he is forced to confront his feelings of isolation and loneliness, and accept that Metropolis is where he belongs. In turn, he discovers that the city appreciates him after all, and slowly regains his powers just in time for a final showdown with Brainiac.
What works?
What works?
- Clark as alien, and alienated. He's reaching a point in his life where, as a normal human male, he's expected to be thinking about settling down, having kids, and setting up the second act of his life. Instead he's running around dealing with everyone else's problems, and his career is at risk as his distraction manifests itself. He generally feels like he doesn't belong. This is a far stronger position for the character than either of the last two scripts because he wants something, even if he's not sure what that is. Kevin Smith has gone on the record with his annoyance at this; "Superman’s angst is not that he doesn’t want to be Superman. If he has any (angst), it’s that he can’t do it all; he can’t do enough and save everyone... Batman is about angst; Superman is about hope. It's not enough to make him want to quit being Superman; it's enough to make the guy stay up at night so he's out doing shit constantly.” Ultimately, this comes down to whether one's view of the character is immutable, which I sense Smith's is. I certainly don't feel there's anything wrong in exploring his sense of alienation if it means getting to the hope in the end. That's his arc.
- Cadmus is not a bad character, he's just completely derivative. He's been chasing Brainiac for hundreds of years so this is personal for him. He's Obi-Wan Kenobi crossed with Han Solo. Old and wise, but street-smart, cynical and not interested in taking anyone else's shit. He is, however, so derivative that there's really only one way his story can end.
- Lois and Clark; there's a bitter-sweet angle to their relationship. This is a friendship that could once have been something more, but whose time seems to have passed. Once again, Clark's potential as "Mr Right Now" is highlighted in stark contrast to the pedestal-dwelling Superman.
- Poirier actually tries to give us what I wanted from the Bates/Jones draft; a tough protagonist's decision in the 2nd act. Clark is torn between abandoning his life as Superman, and ensuring the safety of Metropolis. If the suit works well enough, he could walk away when Brainiac is defeated and live a normal life. Ultimately, he remembers who he is and why he does what he does. Once he realises that, we suspect he would carry on even if he had to use the suit for the rest of his life. It's the decision, the intention and the will that help make him Superman, not just the powers. It's this that treads the same ground as Batman Forever, far more so than Lemkin's draft. Will the hero choose to forsake his alter-ego for the sake of a normal life?
- A ticking time bomb. 48 hours to bring Brainiac Superman's body, or Metropolis is razed. That's a decent, driving incentive for Acts 2 and 3. The watch countdown motif is dumb but effective. Why Brainiac suddenly downgrades from planet-popping to mere city-razing is another question entirely.
- The Super-suit. Just. It feels like it was designed to sell toys, but crucially, the suit serves a useful narrative function; with it, a powerless Superman can still be Superman. It's not perfect, but it gives him a means to continue being useful during Act 2, and helps drive his arc by enabling him to consider how he can save the world AND think about walking away from it. It also works because it doesn't work; it replicates his powers but can wig out at any point, which at least makes it dramatically interesting.
- Superman gets to see his own funeral. Carillean technology allows Cadmus to record the final days of a planet for holographic playback, and so Superman can witness his own burial, see the outpouring of grief, and starts to realise that perhaps he is appreciated here after all. As motivations go, it's pretty on the nose, but effective.
- Kryptonite. Again, it's given more to do than the usual "hang around and make like a green rock". Yes, the idea of Doomsday having Kryptonite blood is dumb, but it's actually one of the least offensive dumb ideas here.
- Poirier's draft takes Jonathan Lemkin's assertion that Superman is like Batman crossed with Star Wars and runs with it. Very, very far. The first scenes are of a princess being kidnapped and forced to watch her planet destroyed by a super-weapon.
- Far, far too many antagonists. Once again we have the curse of the comic book movie; a hilariously illogical alliance of villains. Reborn almost simultaneously sounds the same notes as Batman & Robin:
- The Brute, crudely adapted from an era-defining villain - Bane/Doomsday. Grown in a lab with Kryptonite for blood to do one thing; kill Superman. However, he is later seen off by Lois jamming a knife under his fingernail, and is ultimately killed by… falling rubble. Doomsday was never exactly a rounded character, but he's little more than a device here, and once he's served that purpose there's nothing for him to do. He makes Schumacher's version of Bane look almost reverential.
- The Femme Fatale - Poison Ivy/Silver Banshee. Silver Banshee (a Scotswoman who says "me" instead of "my") has a retinue of male models who laze around her apartment 90% naked, steal diamonds for her, and are routinely dispatched post-coitus by the effects of her magical voice-box. If that sounds like something you'd want to see, I can only assume you are Joel Schumacher.
- The Accidental Supervillain - Mr. Freeze/Parasite. Who knew a lab fire could turn a guy purple and enable him to harvest the life-force from anyone he touches? Parasite also serves as the comic relief; except there's little comedy and next to no relief. There may well be a place for him in a Superman movie one day, but there are roughly a dozen better antagonists to get through first.
- The Batman cameo. The Dark Knight pops up at Superman's funeral to say a few words. Five, to be exact. He then vanishes, ignoring the force-field surrounding the city, and apparently dismissing this most inter-galactic of crimes. We can only assume that Metropolite problems aren't in his job description. The point is, if you're going to have Batman pop up, have him do something useful. Will he splinter the focus of the story? Of course he will. So why is he here?
- Superman as Rocky Balboa. We already established that Cadmus is basically Obi-Wan Solo, but come the second act, he's become Mickey Goldmill and Mr. Miyagi too. For Superman, act 2 is basically motivational psychology and training montages. Speaking of which…
- Phin-Yar. The Kryptonian martial discipline is a means of dramatising Superman's struggle to unite his heart, body and mind. It's the external goal of getting his powers back twinned with the internal goal of accepting himself and his place in the universe, but it's hard to argue with Kevin Smith's assertion that this displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the Superman mythos. It's part The Force, part self-help, part Sun Tzu. At one point Cadmus tells him to "think about why you lost your powers. What are you supposed to learn from it?" and my eyes rolled so far back in my head I almost lost them for good.
- RET-CON ALERT! It turns out that Brainiac destroyed Krypton. Because landing in Metropolis Central Park, unleashing Doomsday to kill Superman and threatening to destroy his adopted city clearly hasn't made things personal enough. Not only that, but through Cadmus' Carillean technology, Superman gets to witness the moment his parents packed him off in the life-pod as Krypton came crashing down around them. There are just so many holes in this version of events that to pick at them would be the very definition of fish in a barrel.
- Jimmy Olsen plays a fairly prominent role, but in this continuity he's moved into TV, and it's done nothing for him. Frankly, he comes across as a bit of a douche.
- The "MTV Generation" again. At one point Jimmy and Lois spill out of a chase into a basement rave, described as "MTV's Grind inhabited by sexy zombies". Yes, SEXY Zombies. Presumably they try to mate with you before/after/whilst eating your brains. Poirier at least seems to be playing it for satire, hence the entirely straight-faced line "Blend in, we'll be okay."
- Lois "listens to THRASHING ALTERNATIVE music like Green Day or Alanis Morrisette." That sentence pretty much satirises itself.
- Superman's magic glasses. Not only do they appear and disappear at will, they make the wearer look 50% frumpier. Lois puts them on, and is shocked when she looks at herself in the mirror and thinks she's seeing another woman. This is actually a great idea for a revelatory scene, but... MAGIC GLASSES. There's no explanation of how they work. There's no deeper thinking. They just are.
- A ticking time bomb. We already covered this in things that work, but come the third act, it ceases to work at all. By page 109, Brainiac knows Superman is alive, and his location. In fact, Brainiac has everything he wants on board his ship. Why doesn't he destroy Metropolis at this point? Take off, obliterate the planet from orbit. Job done. Needless to say, he doesn't.
- Superman kills. I don't have a problem with him using necessary force if there's no other way. If that means he has to kill, so be it. Others will argue that it's Superman's very resistance to killing that makes him interesting. But here, he never explores options other than killing to win. I wasn't at all upset by him breaking General Zod's neck because it was clear that Zod could be neither captured nor pacified; the same goes for the Zod in Superman II. There's no such groundwork laid here, so it feels like killing for the sake of it. There are four antagonists, and he brings not a single one in alive.
We're waaaaay outside the Chris Reeve era here, but this is no reboot. We're mid-continuity, with established characters and paradigms of a franchise in need of complete recasting. Now, we tend to think of every change in principle cast as being a cue to reboot. But back in 1995, Bond had changed (often), Batman had changed, and nobody started again... the films simply carried on. Why not Superman?
In 2013, it's easy to wonder why these unmade scripts kept falling in between stools, but at this point the reboot hadn't even been invented yet. There weren't so many sequels back then that the notion of starting from scratch was even viable. Now, almost twenty years later, even successful franchises are due a reset. Consider Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy; it's because of the success of his vision that Batman is going to end up rebooted. Nobody is going to want to play in Nolan's universe, in his timeline, with new actors. The result will be another reset, and likely another origin story.
It's not at all hard to see why all involved thought Poirier's Superman Reborn needed more work, at the very least. It's a mish-mash of basically sound narrative technique with some truly horrible ideas. It fails on too many levels, skirting Batman & Robin awfulness whilst never, thankfully, descending into the seventh level of camp that film occupies. It's big, it's bloated, it would have cost a bomb, and with a multitude of narrative and logical disconnects at play, it doesn't actually make much sense.
That said, it'll be interesting to examine what, exactly, Poirier changed in the next draft. What problems had he, Peters and Warner Bros. identified and how did they go about dealing with them? In Hollywood, it's very easy to throw writers from the train and get someone else in; Poirier at least got three shots at hitting whatever target Peters and Warners were pointing him at.
Man of Steel preventable death and destruction rating (where Man of Steel is a 10): 5 Comparatively little preventable destruction (even though he doesn't ever try to divert Doomsday away from populated areas), but Superman is directly responsible for at least two deaths, and there are two more he could, perhaps should, have prevented.
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(All sources have been linked to except the script: if you happen to be the creator or originator of any materials you feel have been misappropriated, please let me know and I'll do my best to correct the problem.)
Man of Steel preventable death and destruction rating (where Man of Steel is a 10): 5 Comparatively little preventable destruction (even though he doesn't ever try to divert Doomsday away from populated areas), but Superman is directly responsible for at least two deaths, and there are two more he could, perhaps should, have prevented.
Find me on Twitter
(All sources have been linked to except the script: if you happen to be the creator or originator of any materials you feel have been misappropriated, please let me know and I'll do my best to correct the problem.)
