Since I skipped over the bigger picture earlier, I guess I'd better fill in the blanks while I'm ahead:
Lord Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman - Tyrone Power
Lois Lane - Linda Darnell
Perry White - John Hamilton
Jimmy Olsen - Ron Howard (circa Happy Days)
Lord Jor-El - Charlton Heston (circa Ben-Hur)
Lara Lor-Van - Olivia DeHavilland
Jonathan Kent - Tom Selleck
Martha Kent - Diane Keaton
Lana Lang - Ann-Margret (circa Viva Las Vegas)
Kara In-Ze/Supergirl - Elisabeth Harnois
John Henry Irons/Steel Brock Peters (circa To Kill a Mockingbird)
Lex Luthor - Yul Brynner
Brainiac - Vincent Price
General Dru-Zod - Basil Rathbone
Parasite - Woody Harrelson
Metallo - Malcolm McDowell (circa A Clockwork Orange)
Manchester Black - Ewan McGregor
Prometheus - Alan Rickman
Darkseid - Ving Rhames
Bizarro - Rock Hudson (circa Pillow Talk)
Ugly Bruno Mannheim - Treat Williams
Morgan Edge - James Spader
Mongul - Andrι the Giant
Lobo - Macho Man Randy Savage
Magog (from Kingdom Come) - Ron Perlman
Director/co-screenwriter Nicholas Meyer
Co-screenwriter Matt Wagner
Producer David O. Selznick
Music Jerry Goldsmith
Creative consultants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Director of photography James Wong Howe
Editor Paul Hirsch
Costume designers Milo Anderson and Edith Head
Production designer Anthony Pratt
FX Weta Ltd.
Character makeup Doug Drexler and John Caglione Jr.
Stunt coordinator R.A. Rondell
Concept artists Steve Rude, Ed McGuinness, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Doug Mahnke
The reason I went and cast so many bad guys was to provide some choices for a movie, rather than going with Lex Luthor as a solo act over and over again. My preference would either be a Legion of Doom story or Luthor teaming up with one or more of the baddies in a traitorous alliance, with an established Superman being publically discredited as one of the villains' means to achieving their goals. Something really heavy on the sci-fi/fantasy aspects, with alien invaders, killer robots, global carnage and destruction on a scale dwarfing
Lord of the Rings, and a sense that Superman is facing completely unwinnable odds.
The origin would be done in a Bond-style pre-credit sequence or as a text prologue. Jor-El and Lara would likely show up in flashbacks or holographic recordings.
The look? Present day, but filmed to look like the three-strip Technicolor films of Hollywood's Golden Age. Super-saturated color, tremendous contrasts between darkness and light...something very comic book and fantastical. The production design for Bryan Singer's Metropolis is pretty much what I'd want, with creepy, scary-looking sets and equipment for the alien villains. Costumes would be contemporary, with one very notable exception:
Like in
Birthright, the costume, insignia, and color scheme would be Kryptonian in nature, and in fact the costume would be created by the technology of the Fortress of Solitude. The fabrication of the suit would be much like Singer's (raised emblem, textured fabric and boots, muscle padding for added definition), but other than making the trunks smaller, making the cape longer, and tweaking the belt, it'd look much the same as what you see here. The emblem on Krypton would be the traditional design in red and gold, but on Superman's costume the color scheme would be the Fleischer version, the black being worn in memory of his parents. This image (not my work) is pretty much what it'd look like:
(And I freely admit, this is the Superman costume I picture Tyrone Power wearing.)
Brainiac would be green-skinned and have electrodes on his head, but his threads would have to be jazzed up. That pink leotard just ain't gonna cut it.
Zod? Black and silver military armor. Not that he needs it, but his vanity demands he keep up appearances.
Darkseid needs to wear pants and a cape. 'Nuff said.
Krypton? A mid-ground between
Birthright and the pre-Crisis comics.
Bizarro? Inverse of Superman. Dark, muddy, ugly colors.
Metallo? His chest should be the only part of him with exposed metal. That way he doesn't look like a Terminator ripoff.
Parasite should look like his animated counterpart. That was a terrific costume design.
The music (purely orchestral, with electronics used for special sounds only) would be as triumphant and operatic as any Erich Wolfgang Korngold score...which it would have to be, given the subject matter.
2:40 widescreen, all the better to frame those glorious panoramic shots of Superman in flight.
That's pretty much it.