It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Bryan Singer on "Superman Returns"!

Bryan Singer started out making stylish thrillers - 1993's Public Access was followed by his 1995 breakout hit The Usual Suspects, and, in 1998, the Stephen King adaptation Apt Pupil, where he worked with Sir Ian McKellan. This was a fortuitous bit of casting, since Singer later convinced McKellan to star in the X Men movies, the first two of which Singer directed (in 2000 and 2003, respectively).

It was the X Men franchise that launched Singer into his current career trajectory, realizing big-budget superhero / action films of the summer tentpole variety. This week, Singer's most ambitious film to date hits theaters like a speeding meteorite: the long awaited, much-troubled Superman revival, a project that became near-legendary for the way it seemed determined to flummox top-name directors like Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, McG, and Brett Ratner (who, as it turns out, ended up taking over the X Men series from Singer for this summer's installment, X Men: The Last Stand). Not for nothing has Singer worked on superhero productions: he took on the new Superman, got it into shape, and got it finished.

Even while his work in film has kept him busy, Singer has found time for the small screen, executive producing the critically acclaimed (and highly rated) medical drama House and directing two episodes per season, as well as co-writing and executive producing last December's Sci Fi Channel event miniseries, The Triangle.

Singer was initially connected to a proposed revival of the 1970s science fiction series Battlestar Galactica for the Fox network, but when that deal fell through and the Sci Fi Channel took an interest, the Galactica miniseries went to Ron Moore, who opted to reimagine the show, rather than simply retell it or continue its unfinished storyline. Given this development, plus the various rumors for how earlier prospective directors of the new Superman film had considered reimagining the popular superhero, one might be forgiven for wondering whether Singer had a complete overhaul in mind for The Man of Steel.

As it turns out, Singer has drawn from the first two Christopher Reeve movies (the first directed by Richard Donner and the second by an uncredited Donner and Richard Lester). The director has been judicious in how closely he hews to the source material and the ways in which he has chosen to diverge from it; those familiar with the Reeve movies will appreciate the many references in dialogue, visual style, and music score that hearken to the original films, but the look and design of the new movie is fresh, a mix of the modern and the classically retro. The visual effects are modern, too - absolutely stunning to behold, whether in the highly kinetic sequence involving an airliner in distress or the smoothly executed, romantically lingering moment when Superman, in his Clark Kent disguise, uses his X ray vision to watch Lois Lane leave the Daily Planet's newsroom and ride an elevator to the roof.

Singer says he's in need of a vacation, but a quick glance at the Internet Movie Database suggests that he will be keeping busy with a handful of upcoming features, including directorial duties on The Mayor of Castro Street (the long-delayed film version of Randy Shilts' biography of the murdered San Francisco city counselor Harvey Milk); and producing a movie about two boys who meet online, called You Want Me to Kill Him? Then there's the inevitable Superman follow-up - no title for that one yet, just a date (2009) and some chat room subject lines wondering about details like who the villain might be and, as one posting puts it, Names that would suck for the sequel.

EDGE had the pleasure, recently, of a telephone conversation with Mr. Singer.

EDGE: Superman Returns builds on the first two Superman films that starred Christopher Reeve, rather than re-imagining the Superman mythos or starting from scratch. How was that decision made?

BRYAN SINGER: I think over the years, particularly with the first film and the TV show Smallville, the origin story had been told many times. I just didn't feel like doing it over again. I didn't feel like saying, Hey, we're doing it over again, but with bigger, better special effects. I wanted to do something new, some kind of continuation, so I thought, I will tell a return story. Superman will be gone for a period of time, and then he will return - and the world will have changed, and Lois Lane will have moved on in some way. But to [have him] return, I needed a place to spring off from, I needed a place for him to return to. So [I chose] the Donner film [from] 1978, with the magnificent John Williams march, and certain iconic imagery, and certain characters, and the whimsical nature of Clark, these different aspects [that] one, I was a huge fan of when I first saw the movie in 1978, when I was a kid, and two, it seemed like a great place for him to return to. Instead of shying away from [these elements established in the first film], I wanted to embrace them. The new part would be kind of a romantic dilemma that would be kind of modern. And then I also made changes - like, The Daily Planet is not a [contemporary] newsroom like in the Donner film, it's more of a nod to the 1930s origin of the comic.

EDGE: I noticed quite a few nods to the first film: visual quotes, dialogue riffing on jokes that were part of the first film, even certain - as you just said - iconic images, like Superman lifting a car over his head in a pose right off an early cover for the Superman comics.

BRYAN SINGER: Oh, you mean Action Comics #1, yes. Holding the car up.

EDGE: Are you a fan of the comics as well as the original Donner film?

BRYAN SINGER: I'm a huge fan of Superman [but] not from the comics. I never really read comics as a kid. I was more of a fan of the [TV] series [The Adventures of Superman] when it was in reruns, and the Richard Donner film. We had cameos for Noel Neill [who starred as Lois Lane for seasons 2 - 6 on The Adventures of Superman], who plays the old woman [Gertrude Vanderworth, who Kevin Spacy's Lex Luthor bilks of her fortune], Jack Larson [who played Jimmy Olsen for all six seasons], who plays the bartender; and I tried to make them more than just cameos, like actual small roles, but not that would distract from the actual story of the film.

EDGE: This was not your first foray into movies based on superheroes from comic books. You also directed the first two X Men feature films, which, of course, addressed certain social issues.

BRYAN SINGER: In a way, the X Men movies were a story [about] power. For me, it's very open and obvious about it, in the fact that The X Men [comic book] was born in the early 60s, in a kind of upheaval, the civil rights movement. Superman was, I believe, two things. It was a bit of a [reference] to immigrants, because it was [created] in the late 30s, when immigration and the industrialization of America, post-Depression era, had really begun; and then [there was the matter of] his adoption, which I do identify with - I am adopted, I am an only child. And there's something about his adoption and his immigrant status and his embracing of both who he was raised to be on the farm in Kansas, with strong American values and all of that, [together with] his alien heritage, his Kryptonian heritage. These two things play a very important role, and that's why the movie is very much keyed off the Donner film, where Marlon Brando [in the role of Superman's father, Jor-El] places a crystal into the ship, and [Superman's] mother [played by Susannah York] says, He will be alone, and Jor-El says, He will not be alone. He will never be alone. There's something about that, that father-son [bond]. We had a bunch of Fathers' Day screenings around the country and I was very excited that fathers and sons could see it together. I ended up seeing it with my father a couple of nights ago, and he was very affected by it.

EDGE: In terms of that theme of family, not only has Lois Lane moved on and started a family that Superman is now trying not to intrude upon, but Lex Luthor, in his role as the villain, intrudes on Superman's family by stealing his birthright in the form of some Kryptonian technology left to him by his father.

BRYAN SINGER: Yes! Yes - when [Superman] comes to the Fortress of Solitude and sees all of that [has been] taken from him, he's devastated on many different levels. That was kind of like the ultimate robbery that robs you of all that you are and all that you were, and all that gives you strength emotionally.

EDGE: In Superman Returns, as well as in the X Men movies you directed, there's a certain balletic grace that you allow your super-powered characters, especially when they are in flight. How is that accomplished?

BRYAN SINGER: It's a constant daily balance with the physics of Superman. What is difficult, what is easy, what is effortless, what is stressful, what's painful and dangerous - particularly in flight? One of the tests we did was we had Brandon Routh, who is a very good swimmer, swim in a pool and bounce off the walls of the pool. We took video of this - he would strike various poses, and simulate various stresses while suspended [in the water]. He would then look at [those video images] and have them as a reference for movements he would do, ultimately, on the wires. In fact, we produced a couple of documentaries about that. One of them is The Science of Superman, which is on the National Geographic channel, and we actually intercut [footage of] him in the pool with [scenes of him in flight] in the movie. It's kind of fun to see how those rehearsals [in water] manifest themselves in the movie.

EDGE: What ideas are you playing with for future projects? Nothing away from JJ Abrams, but a lot of Star Trek fans wish you would have been named to helm the next Star Trek movie.

BRYAN SINGER: Yeah, I'm such a fan of Star Trek! My composer, John Ottman, and I are just obsessed with Star Trek. But you don't know. Maybe we just enjoy watching Star Trek, and making it would be a whole different thing. But right now, I just need a big vacation. [These have been] two solid, very intense years. Between my TV show, House, and the miniseries I produced for the Sci Fi Channel [The Triangle], I've been working two solid years non-stop, so I'm going to take a little break.

EDGE: And when you come back all rested?

BRYAN SINGER: I'd like to do something small. I mean, I enjoyed very much directing the pilot for House, and that was very short, very small. It would be fun to do something a little more intimate, something without all those expectations and all those visual effects. I'm no stranger to it now; this is my third time around. I think part of me also craves doing that; that kind of movie I would wait on line to see as a kid.