Cool Videos: The $10M Superman Returns opening you never saw

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Usually just any old deleted scene isn’t worth posting, but when it’s a five minute, fully produced, $10 million opening for a major blockbuster, I thought it might be worthwhile.

MAN OF STEEL may have been pushed back to 2013, but we can still have a bit of new Superman footage through this scene. It has Brandon Routh’s Superman returning to Krypton to see that yup, it’s super dead, and also full of Kryptonite. Surprise!

I’m a little unclear as to the giant “S” he uncovers. I get that it’s the House of El, but why would it be that huge on some cliff face? And then what happens? Superman just sucks at driving his crystal spaceship so it splinters and he crashes back to earth? Just a very strange scene all around.

I see what made this sequence so expensive, but I also see why it was cut. but they probably should have figured that out before they fully rendered the entire thing.