It seems every few months a batch of concept artwork emerges from one of the many failed Superman
productions, and every time we marvel (no pun intended) at how weird
and poorly-judged they seem. These pictures do give us insight into the
headspace of any given production of course, but I think we often forget
that concept sketches for a film of that scale are generated by the
thousands, and often the goal is to come up with as radical an idea as
possible so that novel elements can be cherry-picked, refined, and toned
town. That said, Burton’s team got pretty far along with some
exceedingly bizarre and unorthodox concepts, so some of this stuff might
be more damning/revealing than I give it credit for.
In these concept pieces [click to enlarge] from Superman Returns and Superman: Flyby
(as Abrams ditched script was called) we can see ideas for a more
organic look (with embedded yellow gems, instead of a belt- which I kind
of like) and an approach that reads to me as sort of…
regal. There is also a sketch of what looks like Doomsday,
that was apparently considered for Superman Returns, a villain I never caught any mention of from that project.
If
there is any topic at all that generates fan discussion, it tends to be
superhero costume design, so I thought I would share these with you.
They come Steven Johnson’s Facebook Page (which you can find and “like” here). Johnson is the same gentleman who revealed those silly Burton Superman
costume test photos, including the one to the left. His FB page is
filled with concept and behind-the-scenes looks at a number of
productions aside from Superman, so it’s worth taking a look.
