Kevin Smith was interviewed for Yahoo Entertainment’s The Never-Weres and talked a bit about an unsuccessful attempt to get a Superman movie off the ground with Ben Affleck in the title role.
“I was writing it for Affleck,” Kevin Smith said. “Ben was heating up. Like he was there. I think he’d been hired for ‘Armageddon.’ Affleck, he’s a fucking giant, like he’s built like a superhero, built like a giant action figure, particularly with the height. And then he puts on the muscles there too. So in my head and heart, it was always Ben and Michael Rooker.”
The film was to be based on the popular Death Of Superman story from the comics. It was to be produced by Jon Peters. Problem was Peters wanted Sean Penn.
“[Jon Peters] goes, ‘Look in [Penn’s] eyes in that movie, he’s [got] haunted eyes, the eyes of a killer,’” Smith said. “And I was like, ‘Dude, it’s Superman. You know, that’s not how most people think of Superman’…But he wanted to reinvent it. He wanted something gritty, graphic and grownup. He essentially wanted like what Zack Snyder eventually did [in ‘Man of Steel,’ ‘Batman v Superman’ and ‘Justice League,’ which coincidentally featured Affleck as Batman opposite Henry Cavill’s Superman].”
Oh what could have been! I know I would you like to Kevin Smith take on a Superman film.
