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Superman Returns
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 Superman Returns Production Notes“Even though you've been raised as a human being you're not one of them. They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way.
For this reason above all – their capacity for good – I have sent them you... my only son.” – Jor-El
Superman – born on a planet which has long since died – has been raised by adoptive parents on the Kent farm in Kansas. The young boy Kal-El is renamed Clark Kent, and though he has grown up among humans, he is not one of them. Under Earth’s yellow sun, he can do things humans can only dream of, but to co-exist with them he must live a dual life as mild, unassuming Clark Kent, secretly transforming into the Man of Steel when the world cries out for him.
But now, the world’s crises have gone unheeded for five long years since Superman’s mysterious disappearance. Without him, crime has risen in the city of Metropolis and beyond; that’s not even counting the future destructive acts of Lex Luthor, who has been sprung from prison with the specific intent of using Superman’s technological secrets for his own personal gain and glory.
Lois Lane, star reporter for the Daily Planet and the love of Superman’s life, has moved on since Superman left without a word. She has even won a Pulitzer Prize for her essay, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Lois has other issues to contend with – she is now engaged to the editor’s nephew and has a young son to look after.
But for Superman, the long search for his place in the universe ends back at the Kent farm, among the only family he has ever known. His destiny lies in Metropolis, where one look in Lois’s eyes tells him that this place, among the flawed but ultimately good people of Earth, is his true home. And with Lex’s plan coming to fruition hours after his return, the world will never need Superman more than it does now.
The Phenomenon and the Filmmaker
“There’s not a country you can go to where they don’t know Superman,” says Superman Returns director Bryan Singer, who first gained widespread attention with the award-winning The Usual Suspects before going on to direct the acclaimed blockbusters X-Me and X2. “You could probably take the ‘S’ shield into the jungle and you’ll have fifty-fifty recognition. In that way he’s a global Super Hero.”
“Everyone has grown up with one version or another of Superman,” says Dan Harris, who wrote the screenplay with Michael Dougherty. “Whether we knew him from the comic books or the small screen or the big screen, we all know the Man of Steel. It’s as simple as that.”
“The combination of his virtue, his indestructibility and his ability to fly is what makes him so appealing to me and so many other people,” Singer says. “To do the right thing, to be able to take on anything that comes at you and to be able to soar up into the sky…we all have imagined at some point in our lives what it would be like to be him.”
Since making his comic book debut in 1938, Superman has remained an indelible figure in world culture and a universal symbol of humankind’s ideal. “He was the first to come from another planet and embody a lot of things that we, as human beings, dream about being able to do, primary among them being the ability to fly,” says executive producer Chris Lee. “But there’s also his super-strength, his ability to see through anything, and his sense of goodness. That lack of ambiguity is very appealing, and it has stayed the course throughout the 70 years of Superman’s history.”
The character went on to be featured in a newspaper strip which ran for more than three decades and today continues to entertain millions of fans each month in DC Comics comic books distributed worldwide through 25 languages in over 40 countries. On the big screen, the Man of Steel first appeared in 1941 in 17 groundbreaking animated shorts produced by the famous Fleischer Studios, along with two live action serials. Since then, the character has starred in five feature films, numerous successful series for television and 35 titles on video and DVD. The first-ever feature film was 1951’s Superman and the Mole-Men, starring George Reeves, which kicked off the subsequent television series.
The first contemporary feature film, Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie, starring the late actor Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel and film legend Marlon Brando as his father, Jor-El, was released in 1978. Director Bryan Singer first saw the film with his mother at a rural New Jersey theater on opening weekend. “I loved it,” he remembers. “It brought the character to such amazing life and yet it had a very nostalgic quality but at the same time was very contemporary. It mixed eras effortlessly.”
In times of rapid change – whether cultural, industrial or technological – Superman has steadfastly stood for truth, justice and all that is good. “The world in 1941 was much different than the world of 1978, which is much different than the world today,” says Singer.
“I think the Superman legacy is less about change than it is about evolution. Sure, he has battled different villains and there have been countless permutations of his costume over the years. Certainly in this movie he’s dealing with an incredible amount of change after being gone for five years. Yet one thing remains constant…his inherent trait to use his special abilities to lead by example and to do good for the world.”
He has served generations as both a reminder of the potential for greatness within humankind, and a powerful savior everyone could believe in. In Donner’s Superman: The Movie, Brando’s Jor-El posthumously tells his son whom he has sent to live amongst humans on Earth that human beings are capable of greatness; they only lack the light to show the way.
Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns is the spiritual descendent of Superman: The Movie and Superman II and utilizes elements of Marlon Brando’s performance as Jor-El. “I think the choice to do a kind of sequel to Donner’s film has given us flexibility and confidence to move things forward,” says screenwriter Michael Dougherty. “We felt that everyone, whether they realize it or not, knows the origin story. Everyone knows who Superman is to different degrees. We are simply trying to continue that story.”
Singer has always felt an emotional affinity for the character and had a precise vision of where he wanted to take the Super Hero in this film. “Superman and I share the fact that we were both adopted,” he says. “I was an only child and he was an only child. For those very basic reasons, I have always felt a real connection to him and that is why he is my favorite Super Hero. That is why it was so important for me to tell my Superman story my way.”
Producer Jon Peters recalls first hearing the story Singer wanted to tell. “I remember getting goose bumps and feeling ‘Wow…that is right on the money,’” he says. “The story is contemporary, emotional, action-packed and a love story, too. It hits all the bases that we want in a Superman movie.”
“Bryan is a terrific filmmaker,” says producer Gilbert Adler. “His great success in the past stems from the fact that he’s a natural born storyteller. Bryan tells a riveting story, whether it’s at the craft services table or up there on the big screen. Bryan is a maestro!”
From a child wearing a cape and Superman pajamas to the dedicated comic book collector to the moviegoer waiting two decades to once again believe a man can fly, the time of Superman has come again.
“Society – the world – has changed so drastically in the last thirty years or so since Richard Donner’s film,” says Superman Returns cast member Frank Langella. “I think Superman returning now is a great thing. He’s coming back at a time when people have a real need, I think, to sit there for a couple of hours with a big box of popcorn and a soda and have someone sweep them off their feet again.”
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Kate Bosworth and Brandon Routh in Superman Returns.
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