18 - 30 the missing years :-
Reportedly the whole deal with "Superboy" was that it was originally Superman as a college student. One report suggested that the series would have filled in some of the missing 12 years or so mentioned in the first "Superman" film. John Haymes Newton was the original Superboy for the 1988-89 season, but was reportedly fired from the series and replaced in 1989 by Gerard Christopher, at that time a leading name for the next Superman film. With Viacom as the series distributor, as well as the syndicated distributor of "Superman IV", the series had essentially become shoehorned to the films with Lex Luthor having facial surgery to look older - supposedly so by the time of "Superman IV" there was an extended history between Superman and Luthor. By year three in the 1990-91 season Clark Kent and Lana Lang did a two-year internship with a paranormal agency, predating "The X-Files" concept by at least four years. At this point the series had also switched from daytime adventures to numerous night time adventures to capitalize on the success of the first "Batman" film. The series ended on a pretty high note, with an episode centered around the death of Superboy.
DSL1999 on Superman: The New Movie :-
SUPERMAN: THE NEW MOVIE was in the planning stages back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Very little is known about the production, except that DC comic book writer Cary Bates was supposed to have written a script, presumably commissioned by Warner Bros. The plot supposedly involved Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk and did not plan to star Christopher Reeve; it was supposed to start the film series all over again. Movie magazines and Sci-Fi publications like STARLOG only hinted at its development, and information was scarce to non-existent. Recall that with flops like SUPERGIRL, SUPERMAN IV and the cancelled cartoon show, Superman was probably a risky undertaking in the first place.
The transition of a superhero from comics to big screen is often long and arduous, unless it becomes a big hit, in which case the movies get dumber and produced more carelessly (the last three BATMANs, for example). The 1989 Batman movie was developed immediately after SUPERMAN THE MOVIE became a hit, but at that time, it was supposed to be for a three-hour TV movie (counting commercials, I guess) to be aired in 1983. Original Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz then wrote the first screenplay which was pretty damned faithful to the comics (a giant penney as a trophy in the Batcave, and so forth), but was obviously rejected later on.
BILL WILLIAMS on Mankiewicz's Batman script :-
A big-budget "Batman" feature had been in the planning as early as 1979, shortly after the success of the first "Superman". According to an interview with Tom Mankiewicz in "Starlog" Magazine, his script treatment for "Batman" resembled "Superman" in numerous ways, that it would have been an epic beginning in Bruce Wayne's youth, with the murder of his parents, his maturity and training as a crimefighter, but it heavily deviated from the comics in that Bruce Wayne wandered the streets at 4:00 a.m., unable to sleep, and witnessed a crime, possibly a mugging, in the act. He prevents the crime from happening, and it is this heroic act that begins Bruce Wayne's transformation into the Dark Knight.
The article further excerpted notes from Mankiewicz's script treatment and mentioned a final showdown between Batman and the Joker. He even mentioned possible casting for the role of Batman, stating that a young unknown actor would be right for the role, a la Christopher Reeve. But one statement he did make would ultimately survive and emerge in Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" film, that with green hair and ghostly white makeup, only Jack Nicholson would be perfect as the Joker!
A "Superman V" had been in the planning as early as 1988, with Cannon Films again responsible for the story, production, and release for the summer of 1989, with a replacement for the increasingly expensive Christopher Reeve. The film would have used much of the 45 minutes excised from "Superman IV" as the groundwork for the new film.
But by 1989, with the success of both the first "Batman" film and the "Superboy" series, Alexander and Ilya Salkind again proposed another "Superman" film. One project, entitled "Young Superman", would have starred the first Superboy, John Haymes Newton, but was ultimately scrapped in 1989 when he was replaced on the series by Gerard Christopher. Similarly, much of what was done in the second season of "Superboy" was done to eventually tie in the series to the fourth film. Another project, simply titled "Superman V", would have had an ecological theme and would have followed in the previous films' storylines.
By 1990 the film became "Superman: The New Movie", scheduled for release in Christmas 1991, and would have featured numerous elements including a parallel universe, the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor, and Superman's battle against Brainiac. The script, which was written at the time by Cary Bates, would have incorporated various elements of revised Superman comics continuity. It was to have been budgeted at around $35-$40 million, an expensive film even at that time, and Christopher Reeve had been the only original cast member approached for the film. He chose not to do the film because he felt it would not capture the spirit of the original as a blockbuster epic. By March 1993 it was under Salkind's production group of "Great Krypton Productions" and would have begun filming that summer for a mid-1994 release.