Film & Television Opinion

Bryan Singer on Superman Returns

Bryan Singer made a few headlines last week when he blamed the box office failure of his film, Superman Returns, on the fact that it was targeted at a female audience – who didn’t turn out to watch it as highly as he’d hoped:

It was a movie made for a certain kind of audience. Perhaps more of a female audience. It wasn’t what it needed to be, I guess. I think I could lop the first quarter off and start the movie a bit more aggressively and maybe find a way to start the movie with the jet disaster sequence or something. I could have grabbed the audience a little more quickly. I don’t know what would have helped. Probably nothing.

Singer’s quotes have been taken out of context slightly, but the idea that the film was targeted at women is his most solid definition of the “certain kind of audience” he was chasing, and he thinks that there was “probably nothing” different he could have done.

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Review

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane?

This weekend sees the opening, on both sides of the Atlantic, of the new Superman film, Man of Steel. Writing for the Ann Arbor Review, I’ve looked back on the previous five live action films.

Christopher Reeve pictured, if I've understood the Wikimedia description correctly, shortly before his marriage to Figaro.
Christopher Reeve pictured, if I’ve understood the Wikimedia description correctly, shortly before his marriage to Figaro.

That’s the four films in the seventies and eighties starring Christopher Reeve, and the noughties sequel with Brandon Routh in the title role.

Click here to read Marathon Man: Superman