With more and more superheroes lining up to take a crack at the blockbuster box office,
even characters and comic books that seemed like long shots on the big screen are being
given a chance.
Marvel and DC's biggest heroes are being reinvented every year, but some of the most incredible,
or riskiest ideas have already come and gone.
Here are Screen Rant's Superhero Movies That Could Have Been.
Batman: Year One After the Batman movies were killed in the
late 1990s, the studio looked to director Darren Aronofsky for a reboot - who decided
to team up with Frank Miller to adapt his comic "Batman Year One" onto film.
The origin story would have thrown everything about Batman out the window, having Bruce
Wayne live on the streets after his parents were killed, and learning martial arts from
books, being mentored by an auto mechanic, not Alfred.
The project was eventually seen as TOO different from the version fans knew, but Aronofsky's
leading man stuck around: Christian Bale was his top choice for Bruce, too.
Green Lantern The version of DC's resident ring-slinger
that fans got was less than a hit, but things could have been worse.
Or, maybe better.
Before Ryan Reynolds took up the ring as Green Lantern, the studio planned on casting Jack
Black in the part, in a lighter story written by veteran comedy writer Robert Smigel.
The movie would have followed the ring as it found the wrong person for the job, sending
its hero into events way out of his reach.
Since the Green Lantern movie that was made was mostly criticized by following the superhero
formula too closely, who knows?
Maybe a comedy would have actually worked out better.
Fantastic Four Before he was chosen to take on Marvel's Ant-Man,
director Peyton Reed was working to get a Fantastic Four movie into production at Fox.
The movie would have followed the comics to the letter, set in the 1960s, with the movie
poster recreating the first issue's cover in live-action.
With the cast hoping to see Charlize Theron as Sue Storm, Paul Walker as Johnny Storm,
John C. Reilly as The Thing and Jude Law as Doctor Doom, Fantastic Four fans would have
been in for a bankable adventure, if nothing else.
Justice League Mortal No matter how satisfying DC's Justice League
may turn out, it's hard to forget that if things had gone to plan, the super-team would
have hit the screen almost a decade earlier.
Justice League Mortal was intended to be a younger take on the heroes, starring actors
like Armie Hammer, Jay Baruchel and Adam Brody, with director George Miller at the helm, and
special effects from the minds behind the Lord of the Rings.
A writer's strike put the movie off track, despite the cast having already assembled
to start production.
Considering Miller's next try turned into Mad Max: Fury Road, Mortal could have been
something truly special.
Batman Beyond When Warner Bros. was still thinking about
a new Batman reboot in the early 2000s, they also got the wheels moving on a Batman Beyond
project.
Calling in the series creators to help write a script, the story was described as a dark,
cyberpunk version of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, with a teenage hero taking up the role of
Batman from Bruce Wayne decades in the future.
The story is still a hit with fans in every form, so there's no question Batman Beyond
was a missed opportunity.
Superman Lives The most famous superhero movie never made,
it's hard to believe Tim Burton's take on Superman didn't make it to shooting, after
he made Batman a big screen hit.
But casting Nicolas Cage in the lead role, and with a script that saw Superman killed
and resurrected, battling a Lex Luthor who had fused with Brainiac, the studio got cold
feet.
It was an outlandish idea, but even if the movie turned out to be a disaster, fans still
wonder if the finished film would have been worth it in the end.
Doctor Strange Marvel is finally getting around to making
a movie about their sorcerer Supreme, but the version they almost had seems like a dream
come true.
While "Sandman" creator Neil Gaiman had been brought in to consult on a Doctor Strange
movie back in 2007, he mentioned it to director Guillermo Del Toro on the set of Hellboy 2.
The two joined forces, both with famous talents for creating fantasy worlds.
But when Del Toro had to drop out to make The Hobbit, Gaiman did as well - leaving fans
to wonder if the perfect creative team had just slipped by.
Wonder Woman It was director Joss Whedon who kicked Marvel's
movie universe into high gear with The Avengers, bringing comedy and action on a colossal scale.
But years before, he had tried to get a Wonder Woman movie off the ground at Warner Bros.
He couldn't convince the studio that his vision of a kickass heroine would work, and eventually
gave up.
But The Avengers proves he might have had a point - especially since he included his
top choice for the Amazonian princess, actress Cobie Smulders.
Spider-Man Marvel's famous webslinger helped launch the
age of superhero movies, but he could have gotten his big budget debut almost a decade
earlier.
Director James Cameron set his sights on a Spider-Man movie as early as 1992, looking
to cast Peter Parker as a smartass quipster, who used the suit to turn the tables on his
would-be bullies.
Since the director of Avatar, Aliens, Terminator and True Lies doesn't have a dud on his resume,
fans can only dream how good the movie might have been, if the studio had gotten on board.
The Batman Long before Warner Bros. worried about making
Batman serious, or gritty, they were focused on just making him successful.
That meant bringing in Tom Mankiewicz, contributing writer of Superman: The Movie and several
James Bond films, to craft a story capturing both sides of the character.
With David Bowie as the Joker, and either Eddie Murphy or Michael J. fox eyed for Robin,
director Ivan Reitman - hot off Ghostbusters - already had his star in mind: Bill Murray.
The studio eventually saw trouble in such a strange direction, and pulled the plug.
Even now, it's impossible to say if they made the right call.
Those are the superhero movies that came shockingly close to being made, for better or for worse.
Which ones have we missed?
Let us known the movies you wish had gotten a chance, or had never been made at all, and
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