The Warner Bros. corporate jet was ready three weeks ago to fly from the Burbank airport to Hawaii, then on to Australia. The passenger list was headed by the director who calls himself McG, tapped to turn a long-delayed "Superman" movie into a multiplex reality.
To save $30 million from the film's already steep budget, the studio wanted "Superman" shot in Australia. A summer 2006 "Superman" premiere seemed possible. But like so many attempts to revive the Man of Steel, the jet never got off the ground.
For reasons that are still in dispute, McG refused to get on the plane, the trip was canceled, and Warner Bros. was soon in search of yet another "Superman" director. After 10 years, four directors and nearly a dozen screenwriters, the studio Sunday said it was going back to square one with yet another director and a pair of new writers.
Hollywood has been cranking out comic-book stories at a staggering clip, and the gigantic profits generated by runaway hits such as the "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" films have motivated nearly every studio to sift through its comic-book collection and jump-start its own superhero stories. Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures is fast at work on another "Spider-Man" sequel, News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox is filming "The Fantastic Four," and Warner itself will release "Catwoman" on Friday.
Yet as easy as it might first appear to turn illustrated panels into a movie, adapting a beloved comic book can be a painstaking process, sometimes no less difficult than the most ambitious Academy Award-worthy endeavor. During the decade that Warner, a Time Warner Inc. unit, has spent trying to adapt "Superman," there have been so many storytelling and budgetary dead ends that the studio has sunk at least $20 million (perhaps as much as $40 million) into the project, without a foot of film to show for it.
"When you go down the road with movies that are this expensive, you have to believe in the people, in the process and in the direction you are taking," said Jeff Robinov, president of production for Warner Bros. Pictures. "And honestly, we have not been comfortable."
One reason "Superman" has been hard to get aloft is because the character doesn't have the kind of edgy appeal of a Batman or the "X-Men" crew. He's an old-fashioned do-gooder, sort of a nerdish superhero. Because several movies have already told his story, there's also a lot of cinematic baggage that must be reworked. At one point along the way, one of the producers didn't want Superman to fly or wear his familiar costume.
