Concept Art For McG And J.J. Abrams' Defunct Superman Project, SUPERMAN: FLYBY

Before 2006’s Superman Returns, there were a number of attempts to bring the Man of Steel back to the big screen after the Christopher Reeve movies. One of these projects was Superman: Flyby, which was in development in the early 2000’s. Scripted by J.J. Abrams, the movie was set to be directed by Terminator: Salvation‘s McG, replacing Brett Ratner.

While it served as an origin story for Superman, Flyby had some drastic changes from the source material. In this iteration, Krypton was not completely destroyed, Jor-El committed suicide in prison, and in the original draft, a UFO-obsessed Lex Luthor was revealed to be Kryptonian.

Henry Cavill, who went on to play Superman in last year’s Man of Steel, was among the number of actors in contention for the role in Flyby. Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. was set to play Lex Luthor.

Now, we have some concept art for the defunct production. Via Film Sketchr, conceptual artist Jim Martin describes the images below.

The next two pictures are from Krypton. The first depicts Jor-El in prison, shortly before committing suicide. The second shows the location where Kal-El’s mother, Lara, hides before being killed by the villain Ty-Zor.

The other four images are of Metropolis. The final picture depicts a scene where Superman saves the US President and Air Force One.

Needless to say, Superman: Flyby certainly would have been controversial if it went into production. You can read J.J. Abrams’ 2003 draft by clicking here.