Superman Lives Script Now Online By Wesley Strick

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:5342:]]With the Superman Lives movie documentary being launched, some new items have recently popped up online.

First, there is the new photograph of Nicholas Cage as Superman, and now we have a script from Superman Lives.

The movie was originally written by Kevin Smith, but when Tim Burton came onboard, Smith’s involvement went sour with Burton getting Wesley Strick.

The SupermanHomePage has been provided a copy of the script, which you can download here (pdf).

Superman Lives features Braniac as the villain, and you can see the “spider” concept art to the right.

I’ve read through the first 20 or so pages and it’s actually quite intriguing.

It starts off with Jor-El and Braniac, who was created by Jor-El and was taken offline as it needed too much power; however, unbeknownst to Jor-El, Braniac was fully awake and needing a source of power tapped into Krypton’s core, which is the cause of the planet’s destruction, and the reason for Braniac creating tentacles and spider-legs. We see a battle ensue between Jor-El, Lara and Braniac. Baby Kal-El is sent away in a spaceship to escape, and there is a second space ship for Jor-El and Lara, but Braniac escapes in it. Both Jor-El and Lara suffer violent deaths at the hands of Braniac. Braniac sets after the first spaceship, but the ensuing explosion of Krypton causes him to go off track into the dark recesses of outer space, as Kal-El makes his way to Earth.

Fast-forward 30 years and we see Braniac’s skull ship, where he’s collected aliens and such, and as he is passing near Earth notices they have nuclear power. He decides to touch down near one of their largest reactions – run by LexCorp.

We are then taken to a press conference with Lex Luthor where he says he has discovered that an alien vessel has landed in Smallville 30 years ago. Curiously, everyone knows about Superman – it seems – and they don’t put two and two together (as I read it). Clark Kent is there covering the news conference – who is suffering from a migraine – and Lois Lane is introduced as well.

From there we go to Smallville where Luthor finds a piece of Clark’s ship, and then he is told about problems at the nuclear reactor. He goes off to investigate where he discovers Braniac! Braniac kills some of the workers, but stops at Lex as he notices the Kryptonian item that Lex found, and realizes he has finally found where “K” is. After Jor-El “shut down” Braniac he created “K” (which I took to be another Kryptonian robot possibly powered by Element X or some other unlimited power source).

That’s about where I am at with my reading, but next Clark and Lois head to Antartica, I think, with the Fortress of Solitude coming into play.

So far it isn’t that bad and plays on the angle that Braniac is Jor-El’s “son” and wants to go on to create himself as the perfect superior being, which obviously leads him into direct conflict with the true son, Kal-El, Superman.

I’m also curious to see how much it differs from Kevin Smith’s own script, which I have yet to read as well.