here was a moment — a fleeting, fragile moment in the early 2000s — when Brendan Fraser stood on the brink of becoming Superman. Not metaphorically. Not in our imaginations. For real.
After The Mummy became a massive box office hit and George of the Jungle proved he could soar through the air with cartoonish ease, Fraser found himself on a short list of actors being tested for a new Superman reboot. The film was called Superman: Flyby, written by a young J.J. Abrams, at one point set to be directed by Brett Ratner, and described by Fraser himself as “Shakespeare in space.”
And yes — this part is true. Brendan Fraser wore the Superman suit. He screen-tested. He felt the weight of it. He saw himself in the mirror. And for a brief heartbeat, he wondered whether he was about to become something more than a movie star — whether he was about to become a national monument.
Did Brendan Fraser Really Screen-Test as Superman?
Yes. Brendan Fraser has publicly confirmed that he screen-tested in the Superman suit for Superman: Flyby. No photos were allowed during the test, and the footage has never been released. Somewhere deep inside a Warner Bros. vault, that screen test likely still exists — a secret artifact from a movie that was never meant to be.
Chapter One: The Mythic Fitting Room
This is where the story stops being Hollywood trivia and becomes something stranger, almost mythic. Fraser stands alone in a dressing room — a fluorescent, sterile space heavy with silence. He later described feeling paranoid, watched, as though the studio was monitoring his every move, like an undercover agent sent by Lex Luthor to infiltrate the Fortress of Solitude.
An assistant holds up the suit. It’s limp and lifeless, red and blue fabric waiting to be awakened. When Fraser steps into it, the material tightens around him like a promise — or a trap. The cape smells faintly of dryer sheets and of the last actor who tried it on. When he looks in the mirror, the S stares back at him. It’s no longer just a letter. It’s a prophecy. A branding opportunity. A burden.
For a moment, doubt creeps in. Is he the Man of Steel, or just a dork at Comic-Con playing dress-up? And then something changes. He lifts his chin. The cape settles perfectly behind him, powerful and bright, just as the comic books of his childhood promised. In that one compressed, high-stakes breath, Brendan Fraser thinks, I could do this. I could be him.For an instant, he stops being a man and becomes an idea — hope stitched into red and blue.
Chapter Two: The Inner Super Battle
But the suit doesn’t silence the argument in his head. Competing thoughts begin to surface, like overlapping comic panels gone philosophical. One voice tells him this is iconic, life-changing, permanent in the best possible way. Another warns him that this is too big, too heavy, too final. Once you become Superman, you never really stop being Superman. You’re expected to leap buildings, outrun locomotives, save the world, and keep the abs that made George of the Jungle a hit.
Fraser would later describe the experience as feeling like a Faustian bargain. Would the role elevate him, or would it hollow him out until there was nothing left but the suit? Superman isn’t just a character. He’s a lifelong obligation.
Chapter Three: The Unzipping
When the screen test ends, the assistant unzips the suit slowly, almost ceremonially, like disarming a bomb. Air rushes in. The spell breaks. The cape droops. The muscles deflate. The myth dissolves. Fraser stands there not disappointed, but clear-headed.
He enjoys being an actor. He enjoys being Brendan Fraser. Superman, he realizes, is a gravitational force you don’t escape once it takes hold. It works for some actors, but he wanted more freedom than the role would allow. He later admitted that his heart was only “ninety-eight percent there,” and for a character that demands total devotion, that simply wasn’t enough.
Chapter Four: DC’s Greatest “What If?”
On paper, Fraser had everything needed to be a spectacular Superman. He could fly through the air in George of the Jungle, battle undead armies in The Mummy, project sweetness and sincerity in Blast From the Past, and earn serious dramatic acclaim in Gods and Monsters. He would have been a different kind of Man of Steel — warmer, more human, gentler, but still powerful.
But Superman: Flyby collapsed under the weight of studio politics and endless rewrites. The project slipped into development hell, and the cape slipped away with it. That’s why the story still lingers. The Brendan Fraser Superman movie exists only in our collective imagination, flickering at 24 frames per second in some dreamlike theater. Untouched by executives, immune to cringe, and mercifully free of superhero fatigue, the unmade movie feels perfect precisely because it was never made.
In that imagined version, Fraser even shares a knowing, cosmic nod with fellow almost-Superman Nicolas Cage — a cameo that The Flash should have included if the universe had any sense of poetry.
Chapter Five: The Superman He Became Anyway
The irony is that the echo of this near-casting never really left him. Fraser went on to play a DC superhero in Doom Patrol. He nearly became a DC villain in the now-deleted Batgirl. He squeezed into another skin-tight suit in Rental Family. He even produced a documentary about an autistic man who dresses as Superman, approaching the subject with unmistakable compassion.
He cried openly on Kelly Clarkson’s couch, the vulnerability of someone trying to save the day in whatever way he can. He never wore the Superman suit again, but he did wear a fat suit and win an Oscar for The Whale. It was a different transformation and a different kind of flight — one that mattered just as much.
Epilogue
In my house — and maybe in yours — there are more Brendan Fraser Funkos and Mummy action figures on display than Superman merch. No disrespect to the Last Son of Krypton; the comics are nearby, stacked proudly, pop-culture icons existing side by side.
Sometimes the best movies are the ones we never get — the ones projected on the backs of our eyelids. The ones where Brendan Fraser, gentle and heroic, flies because we believe he can. And for one impossible moment, in a quiet fitting room, he believed it too.
That is our Superman.
