Brendan Fraser Nearly Became Superman — What Stopped It

For a blink-and-you-missed-it moment in the early 2000s, Brendan Fraser was inches from becoming Superman. Not fan-cast fantasy. The real deal. Suit on. Camera rolling. And then... nothing. Here is how close it got, what it felt like from his side of the cape, and why the whole thing vanished into the studio ether.

The quick version

• The movie was called 'Superman: Flyby' — written by a young J.J. Abrams and, at one point, set to be directed by Brett Ratner.
• Fraser was on the shortlist after The Mummy blew up and George of the Jungle proved he could sell big-screen physicality and heart.
• He actually screen-tested in the Superman suit. No photos were allowed, and the tape has never surfaced. If it exists, it is probably deep in a Warner Bros. vault.
• Fraser once summed up the script like this:

"Shakespeare in space."

Stepping into the suit

Fraser has talked about the fitting like it was part audition, part anxiety dream. Picture a fluorescent-lit dressing room, too quiet, too clean. He felt watched — not literally, just that studio-eyeballs-everywhere feeling — like he was being tested even when he wasn't reading lines.

An assistant held up the suit: bright, limp, waiting. He climbed in, the fabric grabbed hold, the cape smelled faintly like dryer sheets and whoever wore it last. Then he looked in the mirror. That S stops being a letter pretty fast. It becomes a promise. And a brand. And a weight.

There was a beat where he wondered if he looked like a movie star or a cosplayer who wandered into the wrong room. Then his posture changed, the cape fell right, and the thought clicked: I could do this. I could be him. For a second, he wasn't just Brendan Fraser, He-Guy From The Mummy; he was an idea people carry around with them — the hopeful kind.

The part that spooked him

The suit didn't quiet the debate in his head. On one side: this is iconic, career-defining, the kind of thing that chisels your face into pop culture forever. On the other: once you are Superman, you are never not Superman. People expect miracles on screen and a certain version of you off it — right down to the fitness routine that made George of the Jungle swing.

Fraser described the whole thing like a deal that might cost more than it gives back. Would it lift him up, or hollow him out so that only the cape remained? Superman isn't just a role; it is a long-term obligation with a costume department.

Unzipping the myth

The screen test ended. The assistant unzipped the suit — slowly, deliberately — and the spell kind of popped. Air back in the room. Cape drooped. Muscles flattened. Perspective returned. He liked being an actor with options, not an icon on a leash. Superman is a gravity well; once you fall in, you orbit it for a long time.

"My heart was only ninety-eight percent there."

And for a character that demands 100 percent 24/7, that two percent matters.

Why it never happened

On paper, Fraser checked every box: physical comedy and sky-high stunts (George of the Jungle), pulpy heroics (The Mummy), genuine sweetness (Blast from the Past), and serious dramatic chops (Gods and Monsters). He would have been a warmer, more approachable Clark/Kal-El without losing the power.

But Superman: Flyby buckled under studio politics and a mountain of rewrites. Development hell did what development hell does. The project stalled, and the cape floated away.

The version we all imagine anyway

Because the movie never got made, it lives in that perfect hypothetical space — the one untouched by notes, reshoots, or superhero fatigue. In that daydream cut, you can even picture a wink of a cameo from fellow almost-Superman Nicolas Cage — the kind of poetic touch The Flash should have tossed in for fun.

Where Fraser flew instead

The near-miss didn't chase him out of the DC sandbox. He eventually became a literal DC superhero on Doom Patrol. He almost played a DC villain in the now-canceled Batgirl. He squeezed into another skin-tight number for Rental Family. He produced a documentary about an autistic man who dresses as Superman and treated the subject with real compassion.

He cried on Kelly Clarkson's couch in a way that felt braver than most PR tours. He never wore the Superman suit again, but he did wear a heavy prosthetic suit for The Whale — and won an Oscar for it. Different transformation. Equally big leap.

The last shot

I'll be honest: there are probably more Brendan Fraser toys and Mummy trinkets on my shelf than Superman merch. No shade to the Last Son of Krypton; the comics are still nearby. But some movies land better as daydreams, projected on the inside of your eyelids. Brendan Fraser as Superman is one of those. For one quiet minute in a dressing room, he believed he could fly. So did the rest of us. That counts for something.