Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another super short one on one interview from Comic Con, this time with SUPERMAN RETURNS director Bryan Singer. We spent most of the interview talking about the response of his film, both positive and negative. Click here to read my coverage of the SUPERMAN RETURNS panel, which has further comments on what's in the future for him and Supes!
Enjoy the chat!
QUINT: Last time I talked to you you were here at the Con with the first X-MEN. Now you've done two more superhero movies and are back again...
BRYAN SINGER: I know! It's weird. I never expected to be so intertwined with the comic book universe.
QUINT: Since you did it with SUPERMAN and we're both huge JAWS fans, how about JAWS RETURNS and make the real JAWS 3 now?
BRYAN SINGER: I would never touch JAWS! That's something that's too... No, no, no... I have fantasies about it, especially since lately they've been advertising this shark movie (maybe he meant Shark Week on Discovery?)... at all the bus stops, there are all these shark poster... It's got me in a shark mood... but, no, no.
QUINT: C'mon, you can get Brody and Hooper back...
BRYAN SINGER: I couldn't do it! I could do it! I couldn't do it to Steven! He's my idol!
QUINT: So, what'd you think of the overall reaction to the film? I know it's really hard to find anything positive online. People seem to be quick to call anything that's not a record breaker a failure. I saw that happen with KONG.
BRYAN SINGER: Well, there's great affection for the picture and I feel... You know, it comes in all different ways. Sometimes it comes with the domestic box office, sometimes it comes in the international box office. Sometimes it comes in letters from your idols who have never written to you before and from their families. Sometimes it comes from coming down here and having a few people say, "Why didn't you do this?" and a few people who say, "Thank you so much." I can only make a movie I think someone will watch 10 years or 20 years from now and say, "Oh, I'm affected by it!" Or a movie that maybe a woman who doesn't come to these kinds of movies will actually watch and get choked up about. That's kind of the idea here.
QUINT: And it seems that across the board people agree on Brandon Routh as Superman.
BRYAN SINGER: Well, that was the key. That was the key. I had to introduce this guy and if that didn't work... And sometimes it takes a certain kind of movie. And by the way, in terms of people's perceptions on domestic box office, this is going up in the face of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, a sequel, but secondly... the last time a SUPERMAN movie was out was a long time ago and its cumulative domestic gross was $15 million.
When I first made X-MEN 1, it was a comic book, but it was also a Saturday Morning Cartoon. People were like, "What?!?" It took a while to get everybody excited. It didn't just explode.
QUINT: I've also noticed this trend in box office that is pretty different from how things used to work. Back in the day, even great sequels usually didn't match, much less surpass, the box office of the original. Now, I'm noticing that box office on sequels tend to reflect more on the film that came before it. Look at the box office for the MATRIX sequels (RELOADED was huge, REVOLUTIONS was half as big) and LORD OF THE RINGS, with each successive film making more money than the one before it. The box office seems to be genuinely affected by the film that came before it. Look at PIRATES and X2...
BRYAN SINGER: And X3! Look at the opening of X3! Jesus!
QUINT: I think that once you have that audience in place you'll hit it big. That why I keep telling people that a SUPERMAN sequel only makes sense for Warner Bros. It's a good time to have franchises right now... SUPERMAN RETURNS will make its money back no matter what...
BRYAN SINGER: It already has!
QUINT: ... and they'll want the franchise to keep going.
BRYAN SINGER: Yeah. You know, we come out here, we come out foreign, we have the DVD and we build. Suddenly now this group of people, and it took them a while, but they've all finally seen SUPERMAN RETURNS. And now, when you make another one, if they don't like it, then it's not as easy to sell them on another one. My average feedback has been very positive. I feel very good about the picture.
That's that. Short, but sweet. I'd love to sit down and go over the dream of Superman and get more in-depth once he's finished his deal with Warner Bros. for the sequel. Got more shorties a couple half-hour long interviews comin', so keep them peepers peeled, squirts!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
