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| Jon Peters is a moron. |
Why?
Well, remember all those years that he was trying to make another Superman film called "Superman Lives" or "Superman Reborn" (during which Superman dies and comes back to life somehow).
His ideas for plots and villains included:
- A giant spider (an idea he later reused in Wild Wild West).
- A space dog pet for Lex Luthor, for which Jon Peters stated "You could make a toy out of him, so you've got to give me a dog."
- L-Ron, Brainiac's robot assistant, which Jon Peters described as "a gay R2-D2 with attitude." (Offensive.)
- Brainiac's spaceship was to look like a giant skull, as if drawn by a 10 year old kid.
Tim Burton was contracted to direct this travesty of a film. However by 1998 $30 million had been spent on production with nothing to show for it. To this day, Burton has depicted the experience of Superman Lives as one of the worst experiences in his life, citing various differences with Peters and the studio, stating, "I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don't really want to be working with."
Jon Peters was also obsessed with trying to make as much money off the franchise by selling toys and other merchandise by making the plot contain lots of things that could be sold as toys (hence why some of his villain ideas were so childishly stupid).
In the one version of the plot Jon Peters insisted he wanted Superman to wear an all-black suit and also did not want Superman to fly at all.
In late 1998 the task of writing a new script was given to Alex Ford (having received previous scripts from Gregory Poirier, Kevin Smith and others). Ford proposed as reboot of the Superman series with seven films - a very ambitious project. However he later left because of creative differences with Jon Peters. Ford described the encounter as follows:
"I can tell you they don't know much about comics. Their audience isn't you and me who pay $7.00. It's for the parents who spend $60 on toys and lunchboxes. It is a business, and what's more important, the $150 million at the box office or the $600 million in merchandising?"
What is worse is how Jon Peters seemed to be utterly clueless about fans of Superman actually want to see. Like he doesn't know anything about the history of the character and has never read the comics at all.
In 2001 Jon Peters even offered the role of Superman to Will Smith, but the actor turned it down over ethnicity concerns.
Time went by and Jon Peters continued to be the person who seemed to be deliberately sabotaging the Superman franchise. In 2003 director Brett Ratner was hired but then Ratner dropped out of the project in March 2003, blaming casting difficulties and physically violent disagreements with Jon Peters.
When Superman Returns finally came out in 2006 it was only because Jon Peters role in the film franchise was diminished. He was still listed as a producer, but it was director and producer Bryan Singer who basically ran the show.
Jon Peters was a big filmmaker back in the 1980s. He was producer or executive producer of 17 films during the 1980s.
During the 1990s he only produced 6 films.
During the 2000s he only produced 1 film (Superman Returns), but did almost no work on it since he was basically riding on the coattails of director and producer Bryan Singer.
Note: In August 2011, a Los Angeles jury ordered Jon Peters to pay a former assistant $3 million after finding she was subjected to sexual harassment and a hostile work environment during the production of Superman Returns.
The new 2013 film Man of Steel doesn't even list Jon Peters in the credits. That is a good thing. Jon Peters is a moron and is better left off the credits for things he only has a history of mucking up.
I am not the only person who thinks Jon Peters is an idiot either. See also:
Man, Hollywood executives can be so stupid
The case against Jon Peters and WB
The Hilarity of Jon Peters
Kevin Smith explains what happened to his Superman film
FYI, I saw the new Man of Steel film last night (midnight screening). It was very good, although I didn't particularly like Russell Crowe as Jor-El because Crowe is a hack actor. The rest of the film was awesome however.
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