Superman Battles Giant Spider in SUPERMAN LIVES Concept Art

Here's a great piece of concept art for Superman Lives featuring Superman battling a giant spider. This was actually part of the storyline for the script that Kevin Smith wrote for Warner Bros. back in 1997. Smith was famously asked by producer Jon Peters to add a giant spider to the script, because apparently Peters had a thing for spiders. Smith wanted the job so he incorporated the ridiculous spider idea.

Peter's wanted it the film to be along the sames line as the Death of Superman comic in which Brainiac comes to Earth, and teams up with Lex Luthor to block out the sun. Doomsday is then unleashed to wreak havoc, and since the sun is blocked Superman becomes weaker, and Doomsday kills him. Basically Smith made Brainiac the spider.

When Tim Burton came on board to work on the movie, the script was reworked. All the concept art you see here was created by Tim Burgard, before Burton came on to try and develop the film. Here's what the artist had to say about it,

The first design I submitted (with Kevin Smith at the meeting) was commented on by Jon Peters (the producer) as 'looking like something I ate at lunch.' Eww! So I did a version with a more human looking head, which to me isn't as scary, but I wasn't paying for it.

Check out the concept art, and head on over to CBM to read part of the script that Smith wrote if you haven't already. Below you will find a video of Smith talking about the project. I'm so glad this didn't happen, the whole spider thing is just so ridiculous. Jon Peters went on to produce the movie Wild Wild West with Will Smith, and guess what? It had a big spider in it.