Man of Steel - NEW LA Weekly Article

[VGPOP]

Man of Steel

Bryan Singer overcame a path paved with kryptonite to bring back Superman

By SCOTT FOUNDAS


Superman Returns director Bryan Singer is sitting on the wrong side of the camera. It’s an early June afternoon on Stage 17 of the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, and a photographer is about to take Singer’s picture for the purposes of this article. But were you to stumble in unawares, you might sooner think that the slender, boyishly good-looking man seated in a director’s chair and sporting a distressed Superman T-shirt was an actor auditioning for a role rather than the director behind this studio’s $200 million revival of a long-dormant superhero franchise. Then again, looks can be deceiving. Just ask Clark Kent.

A few hours from now, Singer’s Superman Returns will have its first press preview — and despite weeks of round-the-clock sound mixing, color timing and visual-effects sessions, there’s still more work to be done, and more long nights ahead. “This particular film, at this particular time, was a unique grind,” Singer had told me earlier, noting that he shot Superman Returns halfway around the world in Australia while simultaneously executive producing a six-hour miniseries (The Triangle) for TV’s Sci-Fi Channel and the hit medical drama House on Fox. But today, Singer puts on a game face. He jokes with the photographer about being scrawny and out-of-shape for a guy in a Superman shirt. Then, as the session nears its end, he suddenly leaps out of his chair, picks it up with both hands and holds it proudly above his head while a few more pictures are snapped. It’s the least of the heavy lifting Singer has been doing of late.
After a decade in development hell and a revolving door of directors (Tim Burton, Michael Bay, Wolfgang Petersen and Brett Ratner among them), far-flung concepts (from the death-and-resurrection of Superman to a Superman-vs.-Batman celebrity death match) and potential Supermen (including Nicolas Cage, Brendan Fraser, Paul Walker and Josh Hartnett), Superman Returns finally took flight under Singer’s helm last spring and is now set to land in theaters across the globe on June 28, two decades after the caped crusader’s last big-screen adventure. Then, millions of fans will weigh in with their verdicts — a force, Singer acknowledges, potentially more powerful than kryptonite. “Whenever you take any kind of franchise and you play it out, it starts to go into a temporary coma,” he says, “and when that happens, it takes a while, years even, for an audience to be welcoming to its return.”

Rest of the article

http://www.laweekly.com/general/feat...f-steel/13750/

[Bat Attack]

Cool read.

[Fatboy Roberts]

That's one of the better articles on a director I've read in a while. Seriously.

[DvilDog]

good stuff

[SuperDaniel]

Originally Posted by Fatboy Roberts

That's one of the better articles on a director I've read in a while. Seriously.

I second that. Amazing read!

[Secret_Riddle]

they call him the caped crusader is that superman or batman?(i think its batman but im more of a marvel guy whose jus gettin into d.c )

[J.Howlett]

Now, that's an article. We need more like this....

[Bat Attack]

Originally Posted by Secret_Riddle

they call him the caped crusader is that superman or batman?(i think its batman but im more of a marvel guy whose jus gettin into d.c )

[Super78]

I'm really getting sick of all this stupid "Superman is gay" nonsense that some of the media have been ragging on.

Just because Singer is gay, that doesn't mean he wanted to make Superman gay.

Just completely stupid.

I listen to Judas Priest. Just because singer Rob Halford is gay, does that make their music 'gay'??

[ultimatefan]

From the sound of that article, Singer needs a relationship really bad. Filmmaking is an extremely consumming career, it can hurt every other aspect of your life.