Is Superman a Home Wrecker?: “He’s not a home wrecker, it’s just what happens when old boyfriends come back into your life. You know, something happens and it’s tough. And they’re not married. No, [James] Marsden’s character and Bosworth - Richard White and Lois Lane - are not married. You don’t ask her about that question. She, not Kate, but the character of Lois. She doesn’t like that question.”
So Whose Baby Is It?: “It’s hers and Richard’s. No, they’re not married. It’s a child out of wedlock. I know it’s very racy [and that] never happens.”
On the Biggest Challenge to Making the Movie Relevant to Today’s Audience: “The biggest creative challenge is to just make a good movie. I don’t really care about things, about relevance of today. I don’t particularly worry about where we are right now because where we are right now or what you consider today will be different tomorrow. So I just basically wanted to be respectful to Superman’s universe.
I think the one thing that makes it more modern is the fact that it is about what happens when old girlfriends come home. The world has moved on since Superman was the idealic young man who emerged from the fortress of solitude as Superman.”
Bryan Singer on the Tone of “Superman Returns: “I think you’ll find it’s somewhere – there’s humor, I don’t like the word ‘camp’. I don’t particularly think Gene Hackman was campy. I think Gene Hackman was phenomenal. But on one hand, on the other hand, there was, with Otis and with the way it unfolded, there was a kind of humor. I’m exploring some of that humor, but at the same time he’s probably going to be a bit darker, a bit edgier. Somewhere in between what you’re seeing on ‘Smallville’ and what you saw in the first ‘Superman.’”
On “Superman Returns’” Villains: “…Parker Posey, Kal Penn and a group of thugs which are kind of modeled loosely after the crime gang in the musical. Which has so little to do with this movie, please don’t say, ‘He’s basing it on the musical.’ It’s not that at all. But I’m saying there’s a bunch of these guys.”
Will the Success of “Batman Begins” Have an Impact on “Superman Returns?”: “No. I don’t think about other films and their success, financially and critically. I actually don’t. I look at this film individually, so completely separate from that. I’m excited. It’s good for Chris [Nolan], it’s good for Warner Brothers, and it’s good for Batman, but it’s not something that I can factor into the movies that I make one way or another.”
On the Possibility of a 3-D or IMAX Version of “Superman Returns:” “Oh, we’ve discussed an IMAX version. As far as a 3-D version, I have to see the demonstrations of how to do that without shooting it that way. In theory, the best, the real way to do 3-D is shooting it 3-D, you know, with appropriate ocular placement, with two lenses attached to the media. I’ve seen the camera… It’s quite extraordinary. But as far as us doing a 3-D release, we would have to re-render other elements in the digital world so we’ve not yet discussed the notion of rendering our visual effects in 3-D. That discussion hasn’t started yet because I’d like to see some demonstrations of what that looks like. Obviously we’re not shooting the film in 3-D.
We’re shooting the film with something called the Genesis Camera. We’re the first film to really utilize this camera. It was built from the ground up by Sony and Panavision to look more like film than any digital camera to date has done and it’s quite fascinating. It’s created quite an image. Kind of was spawned from when I did Brandon Routh’s screen test. I did it in both 35mm and 70mm and I looked at the 70mm image and the resolution, and I said, ‘God, if we could only shoot this movie in 70mm.’ But it’s not possible with the way that the cameras, the lenses, the rigs, the processing of the films, it’s just not possible. So the Genesis Camera came the closest to creating something classic, but new. And with a resolution that will blow up to IMAX. You’ll be able to project on the side of the biggest building in this town and it will be pretty vivid, pretty clear.”
Will Krypto the Superdog Be a Character?: “No, but we have a little mascot on set we call Dingo because we think that’s funny. That would be like in Australia, calling a dog Dingo would be like calling a dog Dog in America.”
Page 4: Bryan Singer on Marlon Brandon and Marvel vs. DC
