By: Russ Burlingame on February 9, 2013
As filmmaker Bryan Singer makes the rounds in promotion of his upcoming film Jack the Giant Slayer, he seems to be taking the opportunity to get on the record on matters related to X-Men: Days of Future Past at every turn.
One subject that he had not commented on up until now, though, was Zack Snyder’s upcoming Man of Steel.
As the director of the critical and box office disappointment Superman Returns, Singer was part of one of the low points of comic book movies in the last ten or twenty years when, after helming two successful and fan-favorite X-Men films, he left that franchise in the hands of Brett Ratner to go take over Superman. Both Superman Returns and X-Men: The Last Stand disappointed fans and critics alike, and did damage to their respective franchises that nobody was sure could be easily undone.
Asked by Total Film whether he was disappointed not to be asked back for Superman (reportedly he had a right of first refusal in his contract, but gave that up a few years ago), the director said, basically, that he wasn’t…but that he would have been if the film had come around a little faster and been more of a true sequel to his film.
Here’s his full comments on Man of Steel:
“If this was a few year ago, I might have [felt disappointed] – but so much time has passed. I’ve done two movies [since Superman Returns], I’ll be on my third movie now in the [X-Men] universe… so whilst it would have been nice then, now I’m actually genuinely looking forward to seeing Zack’s movie. At my heart I’m a fan. I’ve always been a fan.
“The original Superman movie was the one that educated me – the first act of Donner’s Superman was what inspired me to take X-Men so seriously. Now I get to go see a Superman movie and I don’t have to f—ing make it! [laughs] They’re not easy! He’s not an easy character!
“I got very nostalgic with my movie but even if you take it in another direction it’s very challenging… inherently he’s such a good guy… what’s easier about X-Men is that they’re all so conflicted. What’s going to be interesting in the next X-Men movie is that the characters are incredibly polarized.”
