A Will Smith Sci-Fi Blockbuster Teased A Batman Movie That Almost Happened

In 2000, Warner Bros. was smarting from back-to-back disasters that left its two most valuable superhero franchises mired in uncertain development. Loathed by critics and fans alike, 1997's "Batman & Robin" had definitively ended the run of Caped Crusader films that began with Tim Burton's 1989 mega-blockbuster "Batman." Speaking of Burton, he had been hired to preside over the rebirth of the Man of Steel with "Superman Lives" in 1998, but even though sets had been built and star Nicolas Cage was signed to a $20 million pay-or-play deal, the production was shut down three weeks prior to the start of principal photography due to budget and script concerns.

Putting Superman and Batman on ice for an extended period was not an option for the then brand-poor studio (keep in mind the "Harry Potter" film series was still over a year away), but no one seemed to know what moviegoers wanted from a superhero movie at the dawn of the 21st century. While New Line's "Blade" had been a surprise hit two years prior, the titular character was so niche that it was debatable as to what, if anything, the film's success even meant for the future of the genre.

With no clear path forward, WB, no doubt leery of doing further damage to these two properties, decided to hedge its bets and make "Batman vs. Superman." If you're confused as to how that project was in development before Christopher Nolan reinvigorated the Dark Knight with his blockbuster trilogy, here's the thing: This "Batman vs. Superman" had nothing at all to do with Zack Snyder's eventual and quite awful "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice." It was, however, a well-pedigreed project (initially, at least) that, had it done well, would've completely changed the landscape of 2000s cinema. And while it never came to fruition in our universe, it was apparently one of the last movies released to theaters in the pre-Krippin Virus world of Francis Lawrence's "I Am Legend." How do we know this?

You don't exactly have to be an ultra-attentive viewer to notice that the eerily empty Times Square of "I Am Legend" contains a huge billboard featuring Superman's insignia nestled inside Batman's crest. When the film came out in 2007, most moviegoers were probably perplexed by this advertisement. After all, we were less than a year away from the hotly anticipated release of "The Dark Knight." Was this Easter egg hinting that the Man of Steel might be joining Nolan's Bat-verse? Obviously, it was not.

No, this was actually a cheeky in-joke referencing the "Batman vs. Superman" project WB fast-tracked in 2001. Eager to get away from the high camp of Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin," the studio hired "Se7en" screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker to do something more in the vein of Frank Miller's revisionist superhero yarn "The Dark Knight Returns." It paired him with director Wolfgang Petersen, who'd just delivered for the studio with the 2000 blockbuster "The Perfect Storm." Comic book fans were mostly fine with Petersen, but they were completely amped to see Walker bring his savagely dark sensibility to Batman. This could be the movie they initially thought they were getting with Burton's "Batman."

Sadly, it was not to be. Walker's draft was, shock of shocks, too bleak and violent for WB execs, so it brought on Akiva Goldsman, who, despite having won the Academy Award for writing "A Beautiful Mind," was still reviled by the geek community for being the credited screenwriter of "Batman & Robin." His rewrite was good enough to get Johnny Depp and Josh Hartnett to play, respectively, Batman and Superman, but Petersen left the project to make "Troy," at which point it all fell apart.

Goldsman's draft can be found online under the title "Asylum," and it reeks of creative compromise. I never read Walker's draft, but I do know that it was set in a post-9/11 world and did not feature Robin. Had this "Batman vs. Superman" gone into production, it's a virtual guarantee that "Batman Begins" would've never happened, which means Nolan would've followed up "Insomnia" with ... "The Prisoner?" There's also a chance WB, which wanted to keep him in house, would've gauged his interest on a standalone Superman movie after development on J.J. Abrams' "Superman: Flyby" and Michael Bay's brief flirtation came to nothing.

In any event, there is a universe in which Petersen's "Batman vs. Superman" got made (and, yes, that billboard was "I Am Legend" writer Goldsman's idea). You'd just have to risk a viral apocalypse that wiped out 90-percent of the population to see it.