We recently looked at 10 comic book movies which never got made that potentially could have been truly great (you can find that feature by clicking here if you missed it). However, there are plenty of other scrapped projects which never made it to the finish line that we’re truly relieved never saw the light of day.

With almost countless comic book adaptations on the way between now and 2020 featuring characters as obscure as Black Panther, Deadpool and Aquaman, it’s genuinely quite shocking to learn what studios at one point had in mind for the likes of Batman, Superman and a variety of other familiar superheroes.

If even half of these had been released, it’s not hard to imagine the comic book movie genre never getting to the point it’s at now (and things were bleak enough for the early 2000s with only the odd gem here and there), so read on for just ten of the very worst sounding adaptations which thankfully never got made…

10. Superman Lives

Superman Lives

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you; that is indeed Nicolas Cage as Superman. After helming two very successful Batman movies, Warner Bros. hoped that Tim Burton could do the same for this comic book movie as he had for the Caped Crusader.

Costume designs for this take on Superman have found their way online over the years and all look horrible, especially as producer Jon Peters had banned the use of the classic red and blue suit because it looked, and we quote, “too faggy”.

He also demanded that Superman not fly in the movie, and the studio turned Superman Lives into what was essentially a toy commercial thanks to the inclusion of a “gay R2-D2 with attitude” to serve as a sidekick to Brainiac and a space dog as a pet for Lex Luthor. $30 million was wasted on this comic book movie before everyone involved just gave up.