Why did Superman Returns fail?

Question

After all the anticipation with two generations of film-goers, the film turned out to be a great disappointment. What were it's greatest flaws?

Answer 1

It was just tooo long and dragged out. After spiderman, it had a work to do to top that!

Answer 2

Superman Returns is not only a great film, its one of the better super hero movies to date. Though there are many reasons why this film failed at the box office.
Mostly everybody who wanted to see this film wanted to see the action. Well, to reinvent a franchise... a film must reintroduce new elements and explain the changes from the known. Since Superman had a lot of elements to cover, the development took more time than the action. For most people, they would rather see something explode than to see real character development, therefore, people were disappointed.
Another reason was timing. Superman Returns came out in the middle of some pretty major blockbuster titles, like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. POTC had a wider range of audience than Superman Returns and stole most of the viewers.
Thirdly, Superman had pretty lousy marketing. They gained buzz way before the film premiered and lost the buzz just before the movie came out. Plus, when Superman Returns was in its second week, the marketing compaign seemed to stop. A few marketing campaigns came back a few weeks later, but it was too late.
So, in conclusion, timing, lack of marketing, and reinventing problems all plagued a great super-hero movie into a failure at the box office.
Though, the next Superman sequel will not be in the reinvention stage and will dive more into more interesting situations like some other sequels that are doing ( and have done) very well at the box office.

Answer 3

I didn't think the film itself was a disappointment. It was far more enjoyable than many other films out this year and the cast was well-put together. It didn't do as well in the box office because some people fail to grasp that Christopher Reeve, much loved though he was, can't play Supes anymore and recasting was going to happy either way. I also agree with Brian D about the marketting. I don't know about other countries but here in the UK, it was very badly marketted with few adverts or billboards to show it was being released. On the other hand, there was no escaping 'Pirates 2'

Answer 4

Superman is a tough character to create a movie around because he is supposed to be invincible. All other superheros have some character flaw that can be used to humanize them and make them accessible. Spiderman is a kid trying to balance two lives and Batman is a borderline psychopath.

They tried to make him accessible with the Lois Lane having a child and a decent guy storyline. It made that portion of the movie feel a little forced and detracted from the Lex vs Superman interaction. It seemed like the awkwardness of his personal life was more important than Lex blowing up North America. Lex and Superman were in only one scene together, now that I think about it. I needed some banter. Kevin Spacey is awesome and all I get when he confronts Superman is him rendering a violent beating and stabbing. It was out of character for Spacey and for Lex.

Answer 5

Let's see Bryan Singer went waaaaay off the radar and experiemented something different. Did it work?
Uhhhhhhh Hate to Say Nooooo..... I was begining to wonder if I was watching SUPERMAN or a X-MEN.... But anyways The first 2 rocked, #3 was egh..... & #4 was uggggggh.....
Singer is a great director but kinda missed the mark here and connecting it w/ Superman II just did NOT add up.

Answer 6

I personally wait to see most movies until they come out on video. I have heard a lot of gossip about why the movie had a disappointing turn out also. Brandon Routh is said to be homosexual. It's sad that movie-goers would choose not to see it for that reason and I don't agree with it.

Answer 7

Because Kevin Spacey Played Lex Luthor as a whiner and moron and Lois Lane was played as a "Bitchy Soccer Mom"-those were the great flaws.

Everyone else was excellent in it. In spite of the poor performances by Spacy and Bosworth, I really enjoyed the film and the uncanny performance or Routh mirroring Reeve's performance.

Answer 8

It was good, but very predictable. I also have to agree that Spacey as Luthor was uninteresting, to say the least. They're going to try to do another one. Braniac will probably be the bad guy. If that one fails----done!!! Where the hell was all the money spent??? It couldn't have been in salaries. The special efx were average. 260 million (Boxofficemojo.com)

Answer 9

I liked it but it should have stayed the original plan for a superman


DOOMSDAY

I heard a few years ago the reason they didnt do DOOMSDAY was it was such a huge story they couldnt figure out how to make it short enough.

But it would have been a lot better then Returns.

Answer 10

I thought it was Ok but Brian Singer should have stuck with the X-Men series. Someone else could have wrote a script with more action and less story for Supes and it may have done better. Especially if it was shorter.

Answer 11

it was boring
i lived on superman and it was a big dissapointment
in the commercials it made it seem very good...but it wasnt i saw it 4 times and still thought it was a drag