[Excerpts]
"I think that Superman Returns was a bit nostalgic and romantic, and I don’t think that was what people were expecting, especially in the summer. What I had noticed is that there weren’t 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 you’re making a movie, you’re not thinking about that stuff, you’re thinking, “Wow, I want to make a romantic movie that harkens back to the Richard Donner movie that I loved so much.” And that’s what I did."
"I’ve 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 – it’s 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 I’ve always found the myth of Christ compelling and moving. So I hoped to do my own take, which is heavy shit for a summer movie. But definitely the nostalgic, romantic aspects of it worked against people’s 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."
Read more at slashfilm
4 comments:
I would really like to ban the term "reboot" from movie lingo. Seriously sick of that expression.
I'm still pissed at Singer for abandoning the X-Men franchise for Superman.
I'm glad he at least admits it had problems but really, that Christ-like fall from the sky was embarrassing.
Listen to him ramble on idiotically! God, I hate that fucking movie and the ridiculous, effete, Angels in America/New York Gay Fashion World approach to Superman. The Devil Wears Prada? Are you fucking kidding me? He was going for the The Devil Wears Prada audience? No wonder the movie was so insanely, boringly obtuse. It was like a girl's secret-crush fan-fiction about Superman, with Lois as the Mary Sue figure.
Not that you couldn't turn all that into something interesting (like a novel or a musical or something) but it's not the right way to REBOOT something as Apple Pie as Superman. If Singer was genuinely subversive (like David Fincher or even Zach Snyder in his own crazy teenage way) it would be different. But he's a soppy, boring filmmaker.
Don't they fucking realize that it was the fucking Great Depression and the concept of a mysterious guy "from another planet" leaping around bashing villians (every day in the newspaper) was a clear, joyous idea? (One of the big ones, you know, like Mickey Mouse!) And that the business about how he walks amongst us disguised as a reporter was a fucking plot expediting device to get the information about the criminals into Superman's ears as efficiently as possible?
Superman was dreamed up by (as Frank Miller loves to put it) two Jews in the Depression, but the Nietzsche's right in there too. It's such a great idea, that the only conceivable way to ruin it is Singer's way, which involves ignoring everything I just said and focusing on the duality and on how he's "closeted" and that, like, makes him real sad. Or something.
I mean, Singer did the same thing with X-Men but it's appropriate for fucking X-Men because that's the mid-Sixties and the metaphorical overtones are deliberate and crucial to the whole idea. I thought he was being unusually sensitive to, you know, the demands of the story, but it turns out that it's just the way he does everything.
(Cue JPX "Gee, Jordan, what do you really think" remark)
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