Robert Downey Jr. would have played Lex Luthor in McG's Superman

Back when Warner Bros were toing and froing over how best to bring Superman back to the big screen in the early noughties, there was a stage at which McG was poised to direct his take on the Man Of Steel.

The director recently gave an interview to The Playlist , in which he elaborates on his vision for the project, which apparently involved Robert Downey Jr. as Lex Luthor.

The Charlie's Angels helmer had come up with a reboot entitled Superman: Flyby , and was all set to film until Warner and McG fell out over the studio's desiire to shoot the film in Australia in order to save on money. Instead, the studio turned to Bryan Singer, and Superman Returns was born.

Now, McG has revealed just what we could have seen from a script written by a young J.J. Abrams...

"We had Robert Downey Jr. locked up to be Lex Luthor," he says, "which I think would have been extraordinary. Ironically, we liked Henry Cavill a lot, but we hadn’t cast him yet. J.J. wrote the script, and we got that to a really good place in the end. But I'm to blame [ for the film not happening ]."

Apparently, Scarlett Johansson and Selma Blair were in talks to play Lois Lane, while Shia Labeouf was in place to play Jimmy Olsen. The mind boggles... Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel opens in the US on 14 July 2013.