This Den of Geek interview has a lot of good stuff, more than we have included here, but we've got the Superman comments for you here. To read what he says about the X-Men and his other comics projects, click on the source link below.
It’s quite weird actually, because I’d sort of given up on it. It’s really odd; I’ve been a huge fan of Superman my entire life, and I felt like something just happened, a couple of years ago after I’d seen Superman Returns. Not to shit on the movie or anything, but I think it was just kind of …probably the way people felt after Star Wars: Episode 1, where…you know that feeling when you’re sitting in the cinema on opening night with your friends, and I’d actually bought tickets [to Superman Returns] for all my brothers and friends and so on, and I did the same with [Phantom Menace] as well.
You know when you hear that Star Wars music, and I…I’m so embarrassed to say this, but I actually leaned over and I said to my wife and my brother. “I think this is going to be the greatest movie of all time” [laughs]! And I actually felt my eyes watering up when I heard that Star Wars music.
And then, one hour in, with Jar Jar Binks and all that, I actually just felt like killing myself. That’s the first time I think I’ve ever felt that crushing disappointment, coming out of the cinema.
It wasn’t quite on that scale with Superman Returns, because obviously the movie wasn’t as bad, but still , Superman meant even more to me than Star Wars, so the idea of walking out of a Superman movie and not being elated…
I genuinely had waited since 1987, Superman 4; buying magazines, checking it out online when the internet came along, just praying for a Superman movie. And managing to snare a draft of the Tim Burton scripts, and probably versions people haven’t even bothered looking at. I’ve probably read them all. So I was really anticipating this Superman movie. In the end it just sort of came out and didn’t do all that well, and it sort of deflated me on Superman; it took me a couple of years to get back into it again. Obviously Superman has a huge place in my heart.
The ‘director’ phoned me about a month ago, and said ‘Look, I’ve got absolutely no authorisation from Warner Brothers, because Warners aren’t looking in particular, but I want to have all my soldiers lined up, just in case.” He said “I want to do a complete reboot of the Superman franchise”. He said “I know you’ve got a huge passion for it and the buzz on Wanted is great”. I think it was the week before Wanted opened. He said “I’d just like you to be a part of it. I think there’d be a really good fan reaction, because people have said they’d like to see what you’d do with it. And I’d just like you to be part of the team. Are you interested?”.
[laughs] It took me a nanosecond to say ‘yes’. I’ve had the plot for an amazing Superman trilogy figured out since I was about ten, so I told him that and he loved it. When we were in the states, we met up – he’s an American director, and he’s a big, big deal in terms of action movies and so on. But in terms of courtesy, you have to wait and see if Bryan [Singer] is going to do any more. You can’t just go in there and nick a project off a guy. If Bryan ends up standing back and goes to move on and do something else, we’ll be in there like a shot.
One of the things I do love about Superman Returns is the reverence for the Donner version, with the music and so forth – but would you have to jettison that for your own project, just to give it a fresh start?
It’s funny you say that – [Donner’s] Superman is obviously the one I grew up with. We were talking about casting various people; obviously we’d be starting from scratch with a whole new cast; but one of the things this American guy [the ‘director’] said to me was that you’ve got to love Donner’s version and keep it in your heart, but we’ve got to do the new one. I said ‘What do you mean?’. He said “Imagine Donner had said ‘I grew up in the fifties and I love the George Reeves TV show – I’m gonna do it just like that’”. He said make it appropriate to the world around you now, and I thought ‘That’s a very good point’.
Chuck Allen was nothing like George Reeves and George Reeves was nothing like Christopher Reeve; the Clark Kent could not have been more different. The idea of moving it on one generation again so that it’s very identifiable to that period is a very interesting idea.
You’ve got to keep Superman as the cornerstone of it, but the world around him should be quite different.
Superman was very conflicted in Returns – almost apologist. What is the problem people have liking Superman as he is?
I actually think it’s a sign of a malformed personality, people who don’t like Superman [laughs]. In fact, nearly all of my friends say ‘Oh, I hate Superman’, and I ask why, and they say ‘Oh, cause he’s such a goody-goody’. So it’s like ‘Don’t you like nice people?’ [laughs], y’know, ‘What is wrong with you?’. And they say ‘Oh, I prefer Batman, he’s more sort of evil and bad-ass’. But who would you rather hang about with? Who’s a better role model with a more kind of positive outlook on the world? I think it’s the same kids that carve a swastika into the vestibule at school – that’s the kind of person who doesn’t like Superman [laughs].
I think the mainstream public, left and right, would go nuts for a Superman film right now, especially in this period where America ’s slightly at ease with itself…to do something that has America feeling good about itself again, and something that just has the hairs on the back of your neck standing up for the whole movie. Could be amazing…
Is there anything controversial in the vision of Superman that you’ve been nursing for about 30 years? Something that might surprise the fans…?
It’s funny, but sometimes you do that when you go onto a new project. I did The Authority a few years ago, and that was like my first big break over at Wildstorm, and I do remember thinking [laughing] wouldn’t it be funny if you had the guy who looks like Superman getting buggered by the guy who looks like Captain America?
Sometimes you do go into a project with that in mind. But I think Superman is a project that you shouldn’t court controversy in. But in saying that, without meaning it, and not in a crude way, I have got some ideas that are quite radical for it, and when I was talking to the director in L.A. he was very excited, saying ‘God, that’s a take on it we haven’t thought of before’. So I think it’ll probably naturally be controversial following the decision, if it happens…but in a good way. It’d be nothing like Chris Nolan’s Batman, because Batman and Superman are so distinct. To me, this is a film that you can take your five year-old to, and his eyes should be lighting up saying ‘This is the best film I’ve ever seen’…
I’ve had this insane thing, my whole life, like I’ve always felt—everybody’s here for a reason, and I’ve always felt that’s my reason. Everything else to me is training to do a Superman film. Everything else I’ve ever done, the good stuff, the bad, it’s all just training to revamp Superman. And then after that I should just [frick] off and do something else [laughs]. That’s my only real ambition.
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