It's a story about love and modern relationships
Bryan Singer was a virtual unknown when he persuaded Kevin Spacey to appear in The Usual Suspects (1995), one of the best thrillers of recent years. Since then he's become one of the hottest filmmakers on the planet, doing an X-ceptional job with X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). When Warner Bros presented him with the opportunity to direct the Superman franchise he steeled himself for one of the toughest jobs in Hollywood, but has skilfully avoided turning it into box office kryptonite.
The idea of resurrecting Superman has been around for 10 years. How did you succeed where others failed?
It's hard for me to speak for other people and the other incarnations, but I think for about nine years they were developing an origins story and I think that was a flawed pursuit. If you're over the age of 25 you probably know something of the original Superman movie, and if you're under 25 you either have a sense of the myth or know Smallville, the TV show.
By the time the last director had fallen out they'd already reserved a stage space in Sydney, and I was available. The studio took a leap with this return story, which was different, because I was a huge fan and had the cachet of addressing these kinds of pictures and characters in the X-Men films. Hopefully it delivers the best of both worlds, capturing the essence of what had come before.
What was it about Brandon Routh that clinched the deal?
I watched lots of tapes Brandon had done previously, and eventually we had a meeting. Somewhere in that conversation I felt like, wow, I don't actually have to pull the plug on this movie, I might actually have a Superman.
Brandon, perhaps by virtue of his Mid-Western upbringing or his genuine nature, has a kind of calm centre and a genuinely decent moral compass. Besides, his talents as an actor and his physical qualities play into the role of Superman. Brandon has a kind of awkward vulnerability which I discovered in our first conversation in his mannerisms. When he wants to he can channel this vulnerability, but when he wants to suppress it it's gone. That very much played into how I saw Clark.
How much trepidation did you have about introducing a love triangle for Superman?
I had no trepidation. I've learned from directing the X-Men movies that there's always going to be fear and scepticism among fans who've grown up with these characters. But these characters have gone through so many incarnations over so many decades, particularly Superman, that anything you introduce is always going to create some kind of reaction.
It has to serve the story, of course, but I felt very excited about introducing these elements, because aside from kryptonite it was hard to imagine anything that someone as powerful as Superman would find insurmountable. To have Lois Lane have a fiancé, who's not a bad guy, and a child who can't simply be wiped away were real dilemmas. Dilemmas aside from Lex Luthor's master plan, the kryptonite, and all the adversity that Superman is going to face on an action level.
Did you deliberately include parallels between Superman and Jesus Christ?
Marlon Brando says in the original movie: "They can be a great people, Kal-el, they wish to be, they only lack the light to show the way. It is for this reason above all, their capacity for good, that I send them you, my only son." From the moment he said it, that's the heart of the movie. The essence of Superman, a Judaeo-Christian myth, is to embrace notions of saviours and sacrifice. You had it in King Arthur with Merlin, and 500 years from now they'll be looking back at Superman in the same reflective manner.
One of the most daring aspects of Superman Returns is that it's a summer blockbuster focused on the emotional side of things...
I joke about it by saying that this is my first chick flick. But it can be frustrating thinking that someone looking for a romance or an emotional journey might not go and see Superman because it's a comic book hero movie.
In the end, the goal for me personally was to make an emotional film. James Cameron, for instance, wasn't just making a movie about a ship sinking and all the technical aspects and horror of that. He was making a love story that happened to be set against the backdrop of the Titanic. To me, Superman Returns is very much a love story set against the backdrop of this classic comic universe. To me, it's out-and-out a story about love and modern relationships.
