Bryan Singer made a Superman movie barely five years ago, and the franchise is already being “rebooted” with a different cast. Which, for a director, has to be a lot like your ex-girlfriend deciding to dabble in lesbianism. Singer, who’s currently producing X-Men: First Class, recently sat down with VoicesFromKrypton.com to explain how the signs were there all along.
“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,” Singer said in an interview with VoicesFromKrypton.com. “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.”
Ahh, the old subconscious Devil Wears Prada defense. C’mon, Singer, tell us something we don’t know. I think he should’ve gone with a bigger codpiece. Everyone knows bigger codpiece = more romance.
Many moviegoers criticized the third act, in which Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) stabs Superman with a shard of kryptonite, but then the two characters don’t appear onscreen again for the rest of the movie. In defending the scene, Singer said he tried to insert a religious analogy his storytelling, which was probably too “heavy” for a summer movie.
“I’ve always felt that the origin of Superman is the story of Moses — the child sent on a ship to fulfill a destiny,” said Singer, a producer on the upcoming X-Men: First Class. “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 s— for a summer movie.” [THR]
Yeah… too heavy… that was the problem. And seriously, dude? A Jesus metaphor? A JESUS METAPHOR?!? If you ever hear someone say they want their protagonist to be a Christ figure, please, for the love of God, whip them and staple them to a cross, because that is easily the most f*cked out, pointless, faux-profound plot device in existence. F*cking Madonna was doing it in her videos to seem edgy back when she was still do-able, and it was hack then. Get it?? He’s falling to the Earth in the shape of a cross! That explains… so much! About something! At least, it reminds me of the Bible! And also Robocop and The Matrix! I’m pretty sure the bigger problem with Superman Returns was that Superman was able to will the Kryptonite shard out of his body using the power of positive thinking. Come on, man, even the Bible respected our intelligence more than that.