The only superhero movie Quentin Tarantino obsessed over: “He has a fascination with this film”
Like almost every single one of Hollywood’s highest-profile auteurs, with the notable exception of self-proclaimed Marvel superfan Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino has rarely spoken too highly of 21st-century cinema’s obsession with superheroes.
He hasn’t been quite as scathing as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, but he isn’t too far off. While he enjoys the odd spandex-clad caper now and again, with Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok his favourite to roll off the never-ending Marvel Cinematic Universe pipeline, he’s not a fan of the genre’s continued dominance.
As far as he’s concerned, the comic book boom has helped to erode the idea of the movie star, with brands and characters replacing the actors who play them as the main selling point. He’s been critical of the “chokehold” superheroes have on the industry, and he’s denigrated the directors who make them as “hired hands” who get paid to perform a job that strips them of their originality and creative voice.
Of course, this being Tarantino, there’s a faint hint of hypocrisy in the air. He’s contemplated helming several comic book adaptations in his time, including Luke Cage and Sgt Rock, while he was offered the chance to take the reins on Green Lantern, and he was an avid reader and collector during his youth.
Someone hating superhero movies doesn’t necessarily mean they hate superheroes, and even though he’s remained one of Hollywood’s most prominent anti-Marvel voices, there’s one blockbuster he developed a strange infatuation with, to the point he was ready to write an entire essay to share his thoughts with the world.
As the first film to feature the title hero since 1987’s risible The Quest for Peace, a lot was riding on Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. A homage to Richard Donner’s first two Christopher Reeve-led instalments, it was a perfectly acceptable return for the ‘Man of Steel’, even if it underwhelmed so badly at the box office that a planned sequel was cancelled and Warner Bros opted to hit the ‘reboot’ button instead.
How much did Tarantino love Superman Returns? So much so that had he served as the Cannes Film Festival’s jury president in 2006 and not 2004, when he fulfilled his duties and awarded Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 the Palme d’Or, he would have awarded it the second highest honour.
“Bryan Singer for Superman Returns,” he told The New York Times when asked who he’d name the winner of the ‘Best Director’ award at Cannes were he in charge that year. “I am a big fan of Superman Returns. I’m working on what is now a 20-page review of that movie, and I’m not done yet.”
That was in 2009, and when did he finish his mammoth analysis of the fifth feature-length Superman movie? He didn’t. Or if he did, he didn’t let anyone read it. Seven years later, on the film’s tenth anniversary, Singer confirmed that Tarantino’s love of Brandon Routh’s one-and-done tilt at the ‘Big Blue Boy Scout’ remained intact.
Referring to the third-act reveal that the son of Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane is actually half-Kryptonian, Singer admitted that “Quentin Tarantino and I had a big conversation about it.” More than that, he confirmed the filmmaker’s obsession: “He has a fascination with this film, but the Lois Lane part of it has always been a stickler for him.”
Of all the superhero movies for Tarantino to become infatuated with, Superman Returns is an odd one. It’s not even the best Superman film, never mind the best superhero blockbuster.
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