The superhero franchise that started it all was Superman. Director Richard Donner literally invented the model for all of the superhero films that would come afterwards. Despite his success, Warner Brothers fired him during the production of Superman II. Without him, the franchise died out, reaching its sad conclusion with Superman IV. The huge success of Tim Burton's Batman, however, made Warner Brothers eager to bring back Superman in an entirely new series of films.
The film then entered a phase called pre-production. In Louis B. Mayer's heyday, "Pre-Production" was quick and streamlined. Studio executives would put together a film by digging into its personnel files and selecting the talent who would make the film. Since everyone was under contract to MGM, this process typically went quickly. The pre-production process for Superman, however was painful, lengthy and expensive. While MGM would just tell one of its staff writers to punch up a script, Warner Brothers would have to pay someone potentially millions of dollars to provide the same service. As a matter of fact, a script may go through numerous revisions and changes, requiring hefty payments to each screenwriter.
Having been released from the Batman franchise, Tim Burton was put in charge of putting together a new Superman. He enlisted Nicholas Cage, a Superman fanatic, to play Superman. Burton entered pre-production, soliciting scripts and story ideas. He easily went through millions of dollars before announcing that the film would begin filming eminently. However, Warner Brothers got cold feet and pulled the plug. By this time, Batman and Robin had underperformed at the box office and Warner had lost all interest in superhero films. It was an expensive decision.
Tim Burton's expensive pre-production costs weren't "written off" by Warner Brothers, however. The company had merged with AOL in the middle of the dot com bubble and when the bubble burst, things became grim. Warner Brothers wouldn't have to report the high costs of Superman's pre-production as long as it could say that it was still looking to make a film. This would be a great decision in the near term, because Warner Brothers wouldn't have to report a loss. It would be regretted years later.
When Bryan Singer was offered the opportunity to direct and produce a new Superman film, his production began life in a deep hole. Since Warner Brothers didn't report its costs from the earlier production, it would have to add them to Bryan Singer's production. It had become a toxic snowball, and would create a budgeting problem for the film. Despite not using anything that had been created by Burton, the cost of that production would haunt Superman Returns. While the film had other problems, the budgeting issue didn't help things. The film would go on to underperform at the box office, though it did have the positive effect of finally clearing that multi-million dollar charge off of Warner's books.
