Steven Spielberg's Only Live-Action Superhero Project Was This Forgotten Antonio Banderas Movie

Steven Spielberg is a living legend who has worked in most of cinema's biggest genres. Whether it's horror in "Jaws," sci-fi in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," adventure in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," war drama in "Saving Private Ryan," and finally doing a musical with "West Side Story," Spielberg has done it all (even jumping into animation with "The Adventures of Tintin") — but he hasn't directed a full-blown superhero movie (yet).

Though some fans would like to place Spielberg with other legendary directors like Martin Scorsese as being too fancy for the superhero genre or too pretentious for comic books, that's quite far from the truth. Spielberg has a populist taste which includes comics, and he's worked on quite a few comic-adjacent projects. Of course, "Tintin" is based on a beloved French comic and Spielberg tried for years to make a movie based on the DC "Blackhawk" series, but there's also the fantastic animated superhero series, "Freakazoid!" and one live-action superhero movie starring Antonio Banderas that you probably forgot involved Spielberg.

The movie is "The Mask of Zorro," based on the character created by Johnston McCulley. Though not what many movie fans might normally think of as a superhero, the character of Zorro, aka Don Diego de la Vega, is a precursor to the idea of the superhero vigilante living a double life. Indeed, "Superman" co-creator Jerry Siegel credited Zorro as an inspiration for The Man of Tomorrow, as did Bob Kane in the creation of Batman. In many tellings of the Batman origin story, Bruce's parents are even murdered after leaving a showing of a Zorro movie (until Christopher Nolan changed it in "Batman Begins"). Spielberg didn't direct "The Mask of Zorro," but he was crucial in getting it made.

/Film's Ben Pearson wrote the definitive oral history on "The Mask of Zorro," which remains a fantastic adventure movie and is also a relic of a time when blockbusters were simply made differently. The movie was years in the making, evolving through several versions before it was ultimately released with Antonio Banderas playing the titular hero and Martin Campbell in the director's chair.

At one point, however, Spielberg himself was attached to direct the feature, being a fan of classic adventure serials and having grown up with the character. Even when Spielberg was no longer going to direct, he remained very involved as an executive producer. Known as a very hands-on producer, Spielberg was heavily involved in many stages of the process, including the script and casting. Early on, Spielberg reportedly wanted to offer the titular role of Zorro to Tom Cruise, though Mikael Salomon, who was then attached to direct, pushed him to rely more on Latino and Hispanic actors. Legend also has it that it was Spielberg who discovered Catherine Zeta-Jones after he saw her in a 1996 "Titanic" miniseries for CBS and brought her in to audition for "The Mask of Zorro."

Notably, Spielberg helped change the original ending of the movie after audiences weren't super enthused about it during previews. "The final scene was a reshoot done at Sony: Catherine and Antonio with a baby boy to continue the legend," editor Thom Noble said during the oral history. "Naturally, a Spielberg idea. He really loves to bookend his movies."

Nearly 30 years later, "The Mask of Zorro" remains a special movie, one of the last old-school Westerns made completely practically, and, to date, the only live-action superhero film he's helped bring to the screen.