Nothing new to me, I pointed to that statement a while ago in another thread.
The funny thing is to read the responses form all the lovers who just can't see anything bad coming from another filmmaker or anyone who knows about movies.
Smith stated that comment shortly after SR was released (during a promotion tour for Clerks 2) and he clearly wasn't in the know of this board or any other Singerloversite that shortly after the release stated
assumptions about what could be or not be in Singer's verse. Hell, we the Supermanfans still have no right answers to those points. How does anyone think a normal moviegoer would? Especially new viewers must have no clue about what's going on. The movie just doesn't make sense when you look at the story instead of just glossing over the two 30 second action scenes in that 2 1/2 hour movie. At least Batman Begins has a logical story that builds up to a climactic showdown and there's lots of action during it, human(!) action.
Batman can't fly or do fancy stuff like Spider-Man or Supes, so why would anyone expect him to? If you want cool gadgets and fancy action watch "Batman Forever" and "Batman & Robin", lots of unnecessary action without any plot.
Batman is very similar to the new Bond, the fewer gadgets the more time for character development. And that's exactly what an origin resp. restart needs.
Too bad Singer and WB assumed that the world knows every details about Superman to fill in the gaps necessary to connect to the characters. Sorry, but a statement from Joe Average like "Reeve is Superman" doesn't mean "I know the old movies" or "I know Superman".
Singer had the absolute necessity to introduce us to his characters, just a few known names for a bunch of actors doesn't cut it. He failed and MUST give those details in the sequel (if it ever happens) or this movie franchise is dead.