From Rebecca Murray,
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Superman Returns - The Story: The Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) returns to Earth after a five year absence only to discover things have really changed on his adopted home planet. The love of his life, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), has earned a Pulitzer Prize for her article on why the world doesn't need Superman. She's also living with her fiance and has a young son. As if that's not enough to digest, Superman quickly discovers he must tangle with an old foe, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), a crazy bald guy with huge plans to conquer the real estate market by creating a new land mass.

Superman Returns Pays Homage to Richard Donner’s Superman: “I’m a big fan of the Donner film. I think what Donner did at that time was kind of summarize what had been done in the original comics and the Fleischer cartoons and the original series and the radio show. I think he had crystallized a lot of that and I didn’t want to retell the origin story. I think if you’re over the age of 25, you know the origin of Superman. Somewhere you remember it. If you’re under the age of 25, you know Smallville or you just know something about it so I never wanted to tell an origin story. If I was going to tell a return story, I had to pick a place to jump off so I chose Donner’s film that I love so much.”

Casting Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel: Routh could easily pass for Christopher Reeve’s brother. “It’s uncanny isn’t it? It’s actually not what motivated me to cast him,” explained Singer. “It just was part of a package. …He has to look and sound as though he’s stepped out of your collective memory. Part of it is Christopher Reeve and part that is George Reeves. Part of it that is the height, the character of voice, the high voice, the low voice. [Says in a high voice] ‘This is a job for [says in a low voice] for Superman.’ So that informed my decision.”

Asked what specifically appealed to him about Brandon Routh, Singer responded, “One: the physical. Secondly, there are aspects of his personality, his upbringing, his view of life, and demeanor that I knew in talking to him that I could draw from, that I could mime for this character and the way I saw this character. Just Supermanisms [and] Clarkisms, different things that I knew I needed for this character. I started to see them in over a two hour conversation with him where by the end of it, I got on a plane to location scout in Australia and in my head I didn’t tell anybody, but I said, I have my Superman.’”

Truth, Justice, and All That Stuff…: Frank Langella as Perry White utters the famous line, but without ‘the American way’ ending. Why the change? Singer said, “They did it so well with justifying the line ‘truth, justice and the American way’ in the original Superman. She says, ‘You’re going to end up fighting every politician in Washington.’ He says, ‘You don’t really mean that Lois.’ She says, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ He says, ‘Lois, I never lie.’

That’s such a great scene because they took that expression, which I don’t shy away from, and they commented on it the way Americans are very passionate, very patriotic and self depreciating at the same time. Americans are the first people to be weirdly simultaneously patriotic and self- criticizing. It’s one of our rights as Americans. We can do that. With that notion, I didn’t have a better way to take the edge off it so I did it that way. But, he is an American superhero. There’s no denying that. He’s the ultimate immigrant, raised on a farm in Kansas. He represents what we as Americans idealistically want to be. In that way, I shy away from it, but I don’t know how to. But he’s not just fighting for America. He’s fighting for, you know, the world. He always was. So it’s not shying away from it, it’s just treating it in not a better way, but a different way. I couldn’t measure up to how they treated it.”

Casting Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor: “He can balance comedy with sadism better than any actor I know,” explained Singer. “I knew that, and in developing the role I always viewed him in my head. It enabled us to write certain moments because I knew I would ask him to do the role. I thought he’d say yes. I hoped he’d say yes. I assumed he’d say yes, and then he could execute those moments. And this gives you freedom to be a little wacky and a little vicious. He can do those two things very well.”

Bryan Singer on the Choice of Kate Bosworth for Lois Lane: “I had seen in her Beyond the Sea, Kevin Spacey’s movie that he had directed. I watched it twice. She was really great in the movie. I called Kevin about her and he said she was terrific to work with. ‘Very trusting,’ and then she has great chemistry in the room with Brandon.”

Page 2: Bryan Singer on Superman Returns' Emotional Aspects, the DVD, and Watching X-Men: The Last Stand