Superman returns - thoughts...

[micks_address]

Hi Folks,

I watched superman returns last night on blue ray and watched i'd say half the making of documentary... while watching the making of - it was great to see the enthusiasm that Singer had for the film, some of the art work looked amazing and the sets.. it was an absolute huge production..

no matter what your view on the film, its an interesting insight into how it was made.. its a big hit in my house with both my wife and myself

i do wonder about the choice of camera used on the film, the film definetely has a very 'visual' style to it.. deep and muted tones, and a narrow enough colour pallete.. from the extra's you can see they deliberatly did that right down to the clothes selected.. they wanted vintage clothes from the 30s/40s etc they really put a huge amount of effort into the film. i wonder if they had shot it with different camera's, would the film have benefited? the set detail was incredible.. and it just doesnt seem to transfer into the film.. i got the impression from watching the extra's that the amount of effort put in just didnt shine through the movie..


According to estimates the film cost 250 million to make and only managed to return 392 million approx worldwide. so the studio made probably 120 million after alls said and done on the theater run. i'm sure there is more revenue from dvd sales and hd movie sales and tv rights etc. It does beg the question though if there's a sequel would it ever be given the budget of superman returns? if its not then it would be a shame..

when you think say spiderman 3 cost probably the same to make but will probably make 600 million profit from its theater run.. Sony can easily make the decision of pumping 200 million plus into another film pretty safe in the knowledge that it will rake in the dough again..

will warner make the same bet based on the profit from superman returns? will singer return to make the next one if he doesnt have the budget he wants to create his vision?

just a note on the hd transfer.. i immediately spotted the colour banding in the undersea shots.. seems very poor for a HD release.. its the first HD title i have watched with VC1 encoding.. i'm, wondering whats peoples general opinion codecs? Can they all look equally good? i checked the bit rate on some of superman returns and it dropped as low as 8mbps in some scenes.. and then up to 19/20 in others.. could warner have done a better job with the disc or is it a case of the source material just not being up to scratch?

of the hd titles i've watched - world trade centre, casino royale, open season, monster house, and chicken little ... superman returns was the least impressive... on all the others i could easily say there was an immediate and noticable improvement over the sd dvd version... the film was good in places but just not consistently good..

one last thing.. i do like the new capacity the high def discs offer.. before i would never bothered watching extra's as they would generally be on a separate disc but last night it was easy to select it from the main menu

Cheers,
Mick

[midknight]

While I agree it looked lovely I found it all rather 'wishy washy' and action lite.

I think it could have benefitted from 2 more big action set pieces and less soap opera goings on with Louis and Clark/Superman - I think one reviewer somewhere summed it up perfectly

'its more Danielle Steele than man of steel'

Hopefully the sequel will see Supes kicking more ass!

[Donnacha]

Hi Mick,

I have the hd-dvd version and although its not a stunning, show-off to your friends disc it certainly has its own visual style. I think its a nice transfer but nothing special - however the TrueHD soundtrack is great!! There is also banding on the underwater scenes (especially when the kryptonite rocket is fired into the sea) on the HD DVD version.

The documentary was very enjoyable and the enthusiasm from Singer is a joy to behold. Its amazing to see the faith of the studio to put such a huge expensive project in the hands of someone so young!!

Spacey comes across a bit of a primadona though, well thats the feeling I got. I also enjoyed the Richard Branson bit as he seemed to be in awe of the whole thing (like a kid), especially for someone who has achieved so much!

Its a shame the transfer doesn't pop right off the screen, but the I applaud the decision for its distinctive style and choice of the colours.

In terms of the film I enjoyed but thought it was about 15-20 mins too long. The bit at the end just dragged it out too much. The action was good, but could've had a bit more. Still you just can't beat the feeling of a superman movie with that theme music belting out and the credits flying overhead!!

[micks_address]

we thought that as well, the writers were very young looking as well and these guys worked with singer on the x men films! what age did they start at!

Originally Posted by Donnacha

Hi Mick,

The documentary was very enjoyable and the enthusiasm from Singer is a joy to behold. Its amazing to see the faith of the studio to put such a huge expensive project in the hands of someone so young!!

[Adam_uk]

I thought the budget of $250m included some of the cost for the failed Superman projects of the late 90s/ early 00s.

I hope the sequal is more action based- though I loved the airplane chase in Returns

[Tejstar]

Whilst I can appreciate the different stance Singer took, ultimately it didn't click with me. I found the acting from the leads to be wooden and overall the film lacked excitement.

[T800]

I really liked SR when I saw it, it did need some big action set piece at the end instead of some rock moving.
I thought the acting was fine, it was good to see James Marsden not whining for a change. I'd rather watch Kate Bosworth any day over Margot Kidder and Routh looked like he was doing an impression of Reeves but with less bumbling which I had no problem with.
I liked the story overall even though a lot of people didn't.

The HD-DVD and Blu-ray version are dissapointing compared to most other releases, I can't remember it being so subdued at the cinema.

I thought the sequel had been greenlit with a budget of $200 million, same writers/director and the promise of more action.

Seen this, very funny?