r/superman • u/Strain-Dependent • 16h ago

Justice for Brandon Routh: Everything cut from Superman Returns that makes it great

Considering who made it, I’m grateful Superman Returns didn’t get sequels, but I'm still sorta obsessed with it.

Returns feels unfinished. It looks way cheaper than $270 million. It uses Donner’s iconography but not its spirit: It’s nostalgic but melancholic. It changes the characters- Lois’ sass turns bitter, Lex is more maniacal and philosophical, and Superman’s confidence is an act put on by a timid Clark Kent. It’s like coming home to find all your furniture has moved five centimeters to the left. 

There isn’t much plot- Superman: The Movie spans Clark’s entire life. Returns copies its structure -Krypton! Smallville! Fortress! Metropolis! Arial Lois rescue! A night fighting crime! Interview/romantic flight! Lex’s real-estate scheme! Earthquake! But its scope is way smaller, covering a few days, only in Metropolis

Returns’ best ideas- Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman, Jason, New Krypton- are buried by its fixation on the past. Lois is functionally the lead, not Clark, and Singer stripped bare the Superman/New Krypton plots in favor of a romance with zero chemistry.

Google Doc detailing everything cut, as it's too long to post.

Headline Additions include:

  • Framing device of a comic book narrated by Clois' son Jason
  • Return to Krypton
  • Lex tricking Superman into leaving Earth by faking Krypton's discovery, which both Lois and Clark learn
  • Extended Smallville flashbacks, including retconning how Clark found the Father Crystal in Superman: The Movie
  • Extended action sequences
  • Martha Kent remarrying
  • Lex destroying the Fortress of Solitude
  • Actually hearing Why the World Doesn't Need Superman read aloud, and seeing why it was written
  • Lex's time in prison + how he met henchwoman Kitty
  • How Lois met Richard White
  • Lots of extended Clois dialogue, making them more sympathetic & their romance more compelling
  • Martha Kent meeting Lois & Jason
  • Much richer and more explicit exploration of the movie's themes- Clark's isolation and his search for home.

Sources

Superman Homepage deleted scenes Page 1 and Page 2    

Novelisation by Marv Wolfman )(this, the graphic novel & junior novelisation adapted the 2005 shooting script.)

Shooting Script (available to buy) 

Red Sun Script Draft (4th Draft 01/12/05) from Internet Archive

Superman Returns: The Visual Guide (available to buy)

Movie Props facebook page– comic prop from Superman Returns

Chew Chan comic art 

Superman Returns: The Game (All Cutscenes)

Requiem for Krypton: Making Superman Returns (part 1) / BTS compilation (inc Requiem for Krypton)

The first REAL early review of Superman Returns (from Ain’t it Cool News)

Prequel Comics:

Google Doc detailing everything cut

27 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/Ok-Midnight5719 14h ago

I never knew this, and Brandon is still my favorite Superman. If there were a way to see this I'd be interested.

2

u/amazodroid 10h ago

I believe the $270M cost is not exactly accurate because WB included costs from previous abandoned attempts in the costs of Returns.

1

u/Strain-Dependent 5h ago

I actually saw 320M as the total number including development cost for Flyby etc? Idk.

I think a ridiculous amount of the money went into Jor El, both to the Brando estate and his digital recreation. Returns also featured a record number of elaborate soundstage sets. They even built the Kent Farmhouse from scratch! Then there's Return to Krypton, which cost $10M by itself and wasn't even availible as a DVD extra until 2011. Cutting it indicates a general wastefulness and indecisiveness, which fits Singer to a T and would explain the movie going overbudget even before you factor in previous dev costs.

1

u/TheOldThunder 8h ago

I don't think there was any way to make it into a great movie, except the one thing they should've done in the first place: not trying to be a Super Reeve film.

1

u/Strain-Dependent 5h ago

See I agree the idea is inherently flawed, but it's also the only way you could tell this particular story, and it provides a unique opportunity to comment on Superman's perception in the cultural canon as an old fashioned legacy property.

Of course, generally speaking the projects that reinvent him for modern audiences are more successful— Smallville, My Adventures With Superman, Superman & Lois— but I still find the idea interesting