Balancing the Emotional Aspects of Superman Returns with the Action Sequences: “The whole thing about action and adventure, it only really works if you care about the people that it’s happening to. The great thing about science fiction and fantasy is you can tell human stories from a completely unique perspective. If you go back and watch the original Star Trek series, if you go back and watch Star Wars, it’s all there. All the human, myth, love, all that stuff - and yet space ships and stuff. That’s what great, and that’s what intrigues me about this. I want to make a love story. I’ve never made a chick flick. I want to make something that my mother and father will tear up watching, and yet I love that science fiction and fantasy. Just love it.”
What Didn’t Make the Final Cut: “I shot a whole lot with the space sequence – the return to Krypton. There was a 2 hours and 45 minute cut of the film that I showed to friends and family. While watching it with a group of people, watching the movie unfold, I just felt it was really interesting on its own and deserved a life somewhere else. Maybe on DVD. I think it should be on 3D IMAX, frankly, because it’s designed to be 3D IMAX.
At some point I’m sure you’ll see it some time, and it’s got a little thing that’s going on. It’s very elegant. In the context of this movie where this movie needed to begin and what it needed to be about, I didn’t feel it. It’s just one of those things that you bravely do. No one told me to do it, to make these cuts. I had no time restrictions nor pressure whatsoever. I just felt the movie doesn’t need this, so I did something else instead. It could exist later in this form. I think it would be coolest in 3D because of the stuff that’s flying around.”
Bryan Singer on the Rough Cut: “It was 2 hours and 45 minutes. That was this cut that I screened for friends and family. That’s why I stepped back and said, ‘Okay, the time has come for me to sit back and bring a bunch of people in a room and just watch it with them.’ You learn a lot from that moment. They don’t even need to say anything to you. I had a few friends I’d ask. But you know it. You feel it in the room. ‘I’ve lost the audience here.’ Lost them, and then at one moment I got them back. You just learn and that was the 2 hour and 45 minute version.”
Superman Returns on DVD: What can we expect? Singer said, “I think there will be some deleted scenes…some charming scenes. Wonderful things that existed beautifully on their own. Moments that were wonderful.
I had a tough thing. James Karen was in the picture and he plays this gentlemen ‘Ben Hubbard’ that Martha Kent has been involved with, and it’s wonderful. There are wonderful beats and hopefully those will be there because I’d hate for people not to see them. It’s the magic of DVD.”
Deleted scenes and other extras, yes, but there won’t be an extended cut according to Singer. “I don’t think I’ll do an extended cut, not at least in the DVD. I’ve never done that. Those are kind of weird, you know? The director’s cut. No, this is the director’s cut. You just saw it. They don’t tell me what to cut. I’m not a place in my career that anyone tells me that I have to cut anything or put anything in.”
Bryan Singer’s Weird X-Men: The Last Stand Experience: Singer, who left the X-Men film franchise to shoot Superman Returns, says he watched the final X-Men movie on opening night at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The ex-X-Men director says the experience was more than a little surreal.
Asked his opinion of the third X-Men movie, Singer responded, “I thought when you have to balance all of those characters and then you have to introduce new characters on top of that, as well as service all of the characters that have been created, it’s a momentum task. I was genuinely impressed with what he did. I ran into Brett [Ratner] at the theatre and we had this moment. We’re friends so we’re like, ‘Oh my God!’ He’s talking to me about the movie. He’s telling me and I’m holding the cup - a Superman cup from the theatre.
It’s weird. It’s like when Brandon and I one night, Warner Brother’s sent us a print. We’d get Warner Brothers movies sent out there, and one night after a long night of shooting me and Brandon and some of the other crew came over and opened a beer and watched Batman. Do you know what it’s like to spend all day making Superman with Superman and then watching Batman? Very bizarre moments…”
