'Superman Returns' on the rebound
By Thomas K. Arnold, Special for USA TODAY
SAN DIEGO — Call it the attack of the love-struck superhero.
With as much romance as action in the two smash Spider-Man movies, it's no wonder that director Bryan Singer says next summer's Superman Returns is first and foremost a love story.
"It's a story about what happens when old boyfriends come back into your life after they've been gone a few years and things have changed," Singer says in an exclusive interview at Comic-Con International, the comics and pop-culture convention that ended Sunday. (Related story: Superman thrills Comic-Con)
A three-minute clip of his movie drew a standing ovation from a crowd of several thousand convention-goers.
"Superman has always been about Lois Lane, Superman and Clark Kent and this love triangle between these three people who really are only two people," Singer says.
Superman Returns, which is due in theaters in June, finds Clark Kent (newcomer Brandon Routh) and his Superman alter-ego back in Metropolis after several years of trying, in vain, to return to his home planet.
Back at the Daily Planet, Kent discovers that his former love interest, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), has a boyfriend and a child. Lane writes a cynical story about Superman's return and in a tirade bluntly informs him, "The world doesn't need a savior, and neither do I."
Singer won't reveal much more about the movie's plot, but it's a fair bet that in the end, Lane is wrong on both counts.
Superman Returns picks up a few years after 1978's Superman, which starred the late Christopher Reeve. It's as if that film's three critically panned sequels didn't exist.
"It sort of puts the first film in a vague history," Singer says. "It utilizes elements, icons and images from that movie and helps give us a place to begin."
The late Marlon Brando, who played Superman's father, Jor-El, will be seen in the new movie, and computer-generated re-creation will supplement archival footage of the actor.
Singer, who also directed the blockbusters X-Men and X2, says his Superman harks back visually to the 1930s and '40s vision of the superhero.
"It looks kind of like Rebecca or some other 1940s love story," Singer says.
Warner Bros. has been trying to relaunch the Superman franchise for 11 years. Singer was asked to step in last year, and he says he jumped at the chance, even if it meant relinquishing the X-Men franchise.
"I identify with Superman," Singer says. "I am adopted, I am an only child, and I love the idea that he comes from another world, that he's the ultimate immigrant. He has all these extraordinary powers, and he has a righteousness about him."
