Bryan Singer fires back!

Aint-it-cool News ran an interview today with Bryan Singer who was at the San Diego Comicon two weeks ago. During the interview, Singer discusses the less than stellar response to the film by some of the internet community.

What's even more interesting is that AICN's Quint, the interviewer, came up with an interesting theory about the film's supposed flop status at the box office:

QUINT: I've also noticed this trend in box office that is pretty different from how things used to work. Back in the day, even great sequels usually didn't match, much less surpass, the box office of the original. Now, I'm noticing that box office on sequels tend to reflect more on the film that came before it. Look at the box office for the MATRIX sequels (RELOADED was huge, REVOLUTIONS was half as big) and LORD OF THE RINGS, with each successive film making more money than the one before it. The box office seems to be genuinely affected by the film that came before it. Look at PIRATES and X2...

BRYAN SINGER: And X3! Look at the opening of X3! Jesus!

And so, let us look at X3 and the rest of the X-Men films.

The original X-Men made a measly $157,299,717 at the domestic box-office.*

But then, X-Men 2: X-Men United followed the 'Quint-ological Curve Theory of Modern Box-Office Dynamics' by making more money than its predecessor with a $214,949,694 total.

You would guess that after making that much money in theaters, and losing its director, writers, composer, and editors, that the X-Men franchise would be set to fizzle out. Fox did - that's why they called the third X-Men film The Last Stand; they were wrong. X-Men 3 wasn't even a very good movie, but that didn't stop it from making even more money than its previous film with a total of $233,742,340. The movie even opened on fewer screens than X-2, and it still made more money.

So let's do a little math here. Superman Returns made $190,524,000 - and counting (considering that the last Superman film tanked with $15,681,020, I would say that this was a major resurrection of a dead in the water series). If its sequels had the same box-office percentage increase that the X-Men series did, Superman Returns 2 (for lack of a better title) would make $260,350,599. Mind you, it should follow the same curve, and make this much money, if not more since Singer promises all of the explosive event movie action that all the cry babies felt they were cheated out of.

And if Superman Returns 3 did just as well, it would make $283,112,560.

(* The fact that I placed the word 'measly' in front of an amount greater than the gross product of many small countries is a testament to the absurdity of modern Hollywood).

Superman Returns deserves its sequels (and team-ups with other DC characters Batman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, etc). There were a lot of interesting plot points that were set up in the movie that will be a joy to see unfurl on the big screen. It's unfortunate that the film wasn't as loved by many as it should have been. I just hope Warner Brothers stays on course, and realizes the potential they now hold in their hands.

To read the rest of Bryan Singer's interview, follow this link.


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