VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Were you surprised by peoples reaction to the film?
BRYAN SINGER: Its hard for me to assess it. My gut response is, It didnt do THAT bad. You know, summers a tricky time I know its hard to blame the time, but theres a bit of an expectation for a summer movie. I think that Superman Returns was a bit nostalgic and romantic, and I dont think that was what people were expecting, especially in the summer. What I had noticed is that there werent a lot of women lining up to see a comic book movie, but they were going to line up to see The Devil Wears Prada, which may have been something I wanted to address. But when youre making a movie, youre not thinking about that stuff, youre thinking, Wow, I want to make a romantic movie that harkens back to the Richard Donner movie that I loved so much. And thats what I did
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: But focusing on the romantic side of things, especially in a superhero movie, is NOT what people would have expected from you.
BRYAN SINGER: Right, because I was known for the X-Men Pictures, which had been more realistic and edgier. That I think was a big piece of what it was. Plus you had that complicated relationship between the Richard White character and Lois Lane that might have thrown people off. Quentin Tarantino and I had a big conversation about it he has a fascination with this film and he wrote this whole essay about it, but the Lois Lane part of it has always been a stickler with him. This is me extrapolating, but the relationship in the Donner film was so black and white and here it was complex. Adding to that, of course, was the child that was involved. Again, I really do think I was making the film for that Devil Wears Prada audience of women who wouldnt normally come to a superhero film.
Thats a tricky thing when youve built an audience that likes your comic book films and you deliver a certain tone, and then you bring this completely different tone to them
. You know, I havent really talked about this in depth, so Im just thinking about this off the fly. Its hard, because Im proud of it for what it is. I mean, there are a bunch of movies Ive made where Im, like, Yuck, that was weak or That couldve been better, and I can see why. But with Superman Returns
. If I could go back, I would have tightened the first act. Maybe open with the plane or something.
QUESTION: Truthfully, as much as I love Superman: The Movie, it felt like maybe you were paying too much of an homage to it and Richard Donner.
BRYAN SINGER: Oh, absolutely. Whats interesting is that people know Im a big Trekkie, and theyre always saying, Why dont you do a Star Trek? and I say, You know, I think Im TOO big a fan of Star Trek. Youd feel like you were watching Wrath of Khan again." So with Superman, again, it was romantic and nostalgic and NOT a high octane summer movie like Transformers or something like that. I think people wouldve wanted that from me, knowing what I did with the X-Men, where I shed all the comic-ness and tried to make it real. Here, though, I embraced the comic-ness and made this alternate, bucolic Metropolis. Then there was the music and the whole thing. But I am very much in love with the Donner picture, and for me the journey was exciting because I got the chance to reprise those images and explore it. When youre fascinated by something and you love it, part of making the movie is trying to please everyone and make a successful movie, but part of it is an experimental kind of thing.
QUESTION: One final point Id like to make is the fact that Luthor stabs and nearly kills Superman, but it seemed wrong to me that the two characters never came back together again; that there was no comeuppance for Luthor.
BRYAN SINGER: Ive always felt that the origin of Superman is the story of Moses the child sent on a ship to fulfill a destiny. And this was a story about Christ its all about sacrifice: The world, I hear their cries. So what happens? He gets the knife in the side and later he falls to the earth in the shape of a crucifix. It was kind of nailing you on the head, but I enjoyed that, because Ive always found the myth of Christ compelling and moving. So I hoped to do my own take, which is heavy **** for a summer movie. But definitely the nostalgic, romantic aspects of it worked against peoples expectations of it in the climate. And if I was going to do another one, it would be a reboot. I would go back and redo the original, but I only thought of that recently. It would be a much less romantic, more balls-to-the-wall action movie. It would be a very different pace than Superman Returns, which I can say at this point because I have distance from it now.
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