super_singer

Total Film has an interview with Bryan Singer in their latest issue to promote the UK release of Valkyrie on DVD and Blu-Ray. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the two big superhero franchise he’s already contributed to - Superman and X-Men. His quotes on both are after the break.

Let’s tidy up the Superman business first. Here’s Singer on the perennial gossip that he’s going to step back up for a sequel to Superman Returns:

I don’t know, I don’t know. There are still issues. I just don’t know. I don’t necessarily…I don’t know. It’s one of those things where…It’s so weird talking about stuff unless I’m about to ramp up and shoot it.

Sounds to me like he’s still involved with the prospective film in some capacity, perhaps only in fighting the studio to give him another shot? Could he be developing a potential approach for their approval? This quote is definitely not the talk of a man walking away, back turned to the franchise forever.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Singer also suggests he’d like to return to the X-Men series too:

I’m eternally intertwined with X-Men now. What takes an audience four hours to watch - the first two movies - took six years of my life. So, to not be part of it….It’s a shame. It’s weird for me to watch [The Last Stand] because I’m so close to the universe. And also Brett is a good friend of mine. But, of course, I would love to return to that universe.

Singer and Ratner are good friends? That’s bound to generate some discussion. Anyways… would this ‘retrun to that universe’ be for the Magneto prequel?

The only thing that concerns me about Magneto is that if the prequel were to follow the track I used in X-Men, which is Magneto’s history in the concentration camp, then I’ve lived in that world. Apt Pupil, X-Men and now Valkyrie… I’ve lived in that Nazi universe for quite a while. I just might need to take a little break before I do something like that.

Now, either Total Film didn’t ask about X-Men: First Class, Singer wouldn’t comment or he only commented off the record. I’m not really sure what the intent is with that film, and I suspect it wouldn’t be an ideal match for Singer’s inherently serious approach, tending more to the humorous, or at least light hearted. All the same, I’d like to be surprised - either by a serious First Class or a funny-bone tickling Singer.

Via The Geek Files.

  • You know. I just got right back into comic collectibg and filling in the few issues of X-Men I never got in an attempt to try to forget Singers crappy X-Men films. However, this confirms my fears. More tight leather clad, over emotional, un-cool X-Men in the future. Why doesn't he just ruin another classic saga while he's at it.

    F'U singer. F->U. Can we get Kevin Smith to please send Singer a memo titled:

    "You Suck: Stop it"
  • Aargh
    Kevin Smith needs that memo far more than Singer ever will.
  • edc2
    the troll powers are not very strong in this one.
  • i dont mind singer.......but for his sake he better bring it
  • I don't mind Singer, except when he compulsively ruins great comic book characters and stories.
  • CyT
    Great avatar rockie!
  • Solid
    Why all the hate for Singer? Why? This is why I'm done talking to you guys about his movies, you don't appreciate true art when it's right under your nose. Fine, he's better off making more intelligent stuff than playing with men in tights (no, don't even think it. No pun intended)
  • If Faverau can make an Iron Maovie and not make it cheesy having a 40 year old man wearing a red robotic suit, then Singer has no excuse. The casting was great, but the movies were bland, disrespectful and pretty uninspiring. (I'm also including Superman)
  • CyT
    Totally Agree Dutch. Raimi and Singer should collaborate on a film which can then be used as a sedative in medical institutes ;)
  • Tanaka
    KEEP SINGER AWAY FROM ALL MARVEL SUPERHERO MOVIES. HE'S THE GRIM REAPER.

    Yeah, Fuck You, Bryan Singer.

    Bryan Singer is the death knell for any Marvel movie. I don't think any studio could trust him. None of his movies have reached blockbuster status and Sony and Universal have shown that they can produce the movies with better directors and gain more than $200 and $300 million.

    X-Men barely made $100 million and the same with X-Men 2.

    Even Superman Returns, while it made $200 million, didn't break the blockbuster status, considering that Warner Brothers spent more than $250 million on its budget and for the marketing for the movie. When you add worldwide sales? It made nearly $400 million but the budget increased to $370 million when you factor in worldwide marketing for the movie.

    Bryan Singer just proves that he can take a studios movie, not produce a profit making movie and exceed budgetary limits imposed by the studio.

    Just look at Superman. Singer was supposed to stick to the $100-150 million budget but exceeded that budget by more than $200 million.
  • Ok, well first X-Men 2 was huge and made over 200 million domestically and was a huge critical success and with my money one of the best superhero movies ever. Second, the budget with Superman got so out of control because of the marketing Warners spent on it. I would love for Singer to come back to either franchise but the foundation he built with Superman Returns would get me really excited for a sequel.
  • Ehhh I don't know so much about that. In the making's of doc for Superman they were bragging about all the lights, exhaust fans and equipment that had to powered with gas generators because of the remarkable amount of power being sucked by the Daily Planet set. Thousands of dollars an hour for gasoline. Seriously? Rent out an abandoned office space, shoot it with available light, and stop over art directing your films. Could save yourself a few million bucks to be spent on Superman hitting something for god sakes anything.
  • Troy
    Supes cost a ridiculous amount because they also added on all those Tim Burton/McG/Brett Ratner preproduction costs on all the unmade Superman movies that totaled well over $50 million (some said it was closer to $100 million if I remember correctly).
  • this is how you judge whether a director is good, by looking at box office sales? that is the last thing i take into account, usually I go with whether I like the movie
  • Well what did you thin of X-Men?
  • fex
    You should go work for fox. Anything you've ever done cracked $100 million?

    BTW, I enjoyed the hell outta Superman Returns, and emotional content is exactly what an X-Men movie needs.
  • Tanaka
    'Sides, have you guys ever watched the bonus features on Superman Returns? The man is a first class geek, like an overpaid nerd.
  • Yeah, and a nerd who is passionate about the material he's filming should never be allowed near it. /sarcasm
  • Nice sarcasm. However, he was obviously not an"X-Men nerd".
  • ITHoTMK
    Here's the deal, kids. Singer wants to make a follow up to Superman Returns. We all know that. Some of us want it, some us don't. Meanwhile Kevin Smith is suggesting that J. J. Abrams should do the new reboot. Sure, good idea but Star Trek ain't Superman and judging from his draft of the aborted Superman film we can already see the direction he'd like to take it. So who out there is the right person for the job? Honestly, Superman is currently trapped by his own history. You either follow the direction of Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie or go off into a completely new direction. Easier said then done but can you really make a Superman film without John Williams theme? No other theme has captured the essence of that character in quite the same way and if anyone is to make another film saddled with John Williams you will forever be compared and/or thought of in the same light as Dick Donner's film not to mention Christopher Reeve. This is a tall order and who knows if anyone out there fits the bill.
  • Well, it took 3 HORRIBLE Batman films to get a great Reboot. Singer = Shumacher for X-Men and Superman. Yes, it's true. Someone give Singera "reveal" flick idea and let's move on. That's why Valkerie sucked too, because there was no reveal. We all knew what was going to happen.
  • Anti-Septic
    Trapped? There is so much material to draw upon in the Superman universe that the statement he is trapped is ridiculous.

    You want to make a good Superman film? No more Lex Luthor. We are sick to death of seeing the same movie over and over. We get it, Lex Luthor is his greatest foe! Lets move on. We really need to see a new villain, not Doomsday.... he has been done to death. I would suggest Mongul or Darkseid.
  • Money is not everything you should mention... uhm...
  • Tanaka
    Singer is a one-man movie wreck waiting to happen ... again.
  • KaiserSoze15
    Did anyone see X-Men 2? The Usual Suspects? This guy is a good director. Some of you are making him out to be Brett Ratner, who is as pathetic as they come. Compare X-Men or X-Men 2 with The Last Stand and you'll see the difference between good directing and horrible directing.

    Superman Returns was bad, but Superman in general is very tough to do. Let's not forget how horrible the last one in the original series was. They should consider Sam Raimi because Clark Kent's character is similar to Peter Parker (in dorkiness) and the mood of the film should be similar too (light, but w/ darker elements mixed in).
  • I live the Usual Suspects, but X-Men 1 and 2 were far from "great". I wouldn't compare The Rat to Singer, but Singer's grasp on the X-Men "universe" is amateur and kind of boring and lame. Who here wants to see Wolverine cut rip the guts out of 10 story tall sentinals, see magneto extract the adamantium out of woverines body, witness Rogue duel with Apocalypse, ect, ect?

    I do.
  • benlomand
    It was Singer's Xmen that brought back the superhero genre in movies.
  • Tony
    Singer's work on the X-Men movies weren't anything special. By X-Men 2, which a lot of people seem to love, there was an overall lack of character development of the X-Men as a team, which is something I would want to see in an X-Men movie. I'm not talking about fighting as a team, I mean interacting as real, interesting people. He could have taken a page from Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men (Heck, they should have just made a movie of that- at least its costumes looked cooler) or Joss Whedon's more recent run on Astonishing X-Men. Yeah, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was a good pick (besides him being tall and kind of lanky), but even that wasn't Singer's first pick for the role. I've heard a lot of people give him praise for his casting abilities, but besides Hugh Jackman the only other good cast was Patrick Stewart as Professor X, and that's pretty much a no-brainer. I like Ian McKellen, but he just didn't seem very imposing or scary as Magneto. And I didn't buy Halle Berry as an African goddess for a second. The plot itself wasn't amazing, some of the dialogue was horrible. X-Men 2 could EASILY have added Sentinels to the mix (I mean, it was humans fighting mutants. Why NOT add sentinels?) So, with just those few things said (and those are far from all my complaints with his X-Men films), as hard as it might be for Singer, I think he should just let X-Men go. I think we should wait a few years and reboot the thing. Besides, apparently that's the fashionable thing to do right now anyway.
  • I say let him. My only real issue with Superman Returns was the CG work. Overall i found it to be a rather solid film. He always spoke about the follow-up being a huge beat-em-up style film.

    And I'm all for it.
  • Superman deserved more.
  • Troy
    Say what you will about Superman, but what's with the anger over his X-Men movies? They were pretty good, X2 especially was damn near great. They would have been even better had he been given actual big budgets. Instead Fox gave Bret Ratner over 200 million dollars and Gavin Hood over 150 million and their movies were lousy to say the least.
  • With those examples it's possible that money might have hurt X1 and X2. I think the first two were top notch and had nothing wrong with them. The third however wasn't as good as the others and Wolverine definitely didn't live up to the hype.
  • Keep him away from Superman. Supes has suffered enough.
  • The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, this guy can bring it and I enjoy his films, but abandoning X-Men to do Superman resulted in the crapshow that was X3, I will hold that against him for a long time.
  • I would argue Hale Berry was the only mistep in his casting, everyone else did a pretty good job.
  • Superman was terrible ... X-men not bad
  • I think he's a good director-- I liked Apt Pupil and Valkyrie, but the X-Men movies were just alright, not too phenomenal. I guess he should have another shot at both franchises.
  • Angry, I usually like your posts but this time I DONT AGREE
  • It's either let him have another crack at it, or watch the Superman film franchise go down in flames. I think that only JJ Abrams is the only person to bring this back besides Singer.
  • I really hope he does the Magneto film. Goyer was a good choice but Singer obviously laid the foundation for Magneto and he's great with Nazi films.
  • Really layed the foundation? He showed him as a kid bending a fence? That's hardly a "foundation".

    In the comicMagneto is much more evil, and much more terrifying.
  • Well he certainly could have started the movie with someone else but chose to show Magneto which might show he at least likes the character and wants to explore his past.
  • What movies did Singer wreck?
  • X-Men 1 & 2, and Superman. all comic book movies. I see a trend here.
  • He didn't ruin anything. He made good movies. You're just the other side of the spectrum that didn't like his movies. They are good, it's probably the best X-men movie were ever going to get. Possibly the same thing with Superman as well. I can guarantee you that what Fox is doing to the X-men now is the reason why the franchise is going to get a reboot. I would rather see a movie by Singer than Brett Ratner or Gavin Hood.
  • That's really the only reason why Superman Returns cost so much. I guarantee you if they gave Singer $150 million to make a sequel, he could do it and it would definitely turn a profit. WB has to realize that even DVD sales gain fans and they should have struck while the market was hot for Superman. I think it's very possible that they might have missed their mark.
  • starscream9289
    Am I the only person on this planet that liked Superman Returns?
  • No, I'm on this planet too. And I know a good few others. Perhaps we are just a quieter bunch?
  • Nope, I loved the movie and it deserves a sequel.
  • It was Forrest Gump who made stupid people look cool.
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