Everybody who's got even the slightest role in Superman Returns has been shipped over to London to get ready for the big Superman Returns premiere, and nobody wants to balls things up like they did in America.
Because, in America, Superman Returns was blown out of the water by Pirates Of The Caribbean: Everyone Look At Johnny Depp Do The Funny Run, which means that overseas success is vital for Superman. Which means people are happy to say anything at all to get boney British bums on seats, and that includes artificially bigging-up the prospect of a Superman Returns sequel.
As far as opening box office weekends go, Superman Returns did OK, but it didn't add up to all the year-long penis-focused hype that had preceded it. In fact, Superman Returns did quite badly for a superhero film, being beaten by Spider Man, the X-Men, Spider Man again, the X-Men again, The Incredibles, Hulk, The Fantastic Four and Batman. Man Of Steel? Man Of Probably Copper At Best, more like.
But Superman Returns is being released in Europe this week, so all of the Superman Returns people are flying over to London to relentlessly talk about, if not Superman Returns, then how they all promise the next one will be better honest and please don't sack them Mr Studio Boss. For example, Brandon Routh, the new Mark Hamill actor who plays Superman, told Time Out:
"I want the story to continue where it's going. I think that Superman in another film would be happy at the start, so that would make a nice change. He'd be feeling good about himself, centred, and feel like he belongs, which is important and will make him even more powerful and strong."
And even Kevin Spacey, who seems to be more consumed with messing up his job at the Old Vic than making films, wants to see a whole bunch of Superman sequels, too:
"You have to look at this as chapter one. So if in fact there will be a second one, and they haven't actually told us yet but one would hope, you know it's going to go somewhere – I know Bryan and the writers that we worked with are so clear about things they want to introduce."
So long as it's only the director and writers that have an idea of how they want the Superman sequels to turn out. Let Kevin Spacey have his way and Lex Luthor would be singing Bobby Darin songs in a sunny park for two hours.
Read more:
Superman Returns – the Future Of the Franchise – Time Out
[story by Stuart Heritage]
Brad Mullet says
I haven’t even seen the movie yet and I can already feel the anti-climax coming on! Something in the trailers tells me “stay away”, but like each of the Star Wars prequels, I’ll have to go along and be bitterly disappointed. No damned self-control….