Brandon Routh Talks About SUPERMAN RETURNS and Explains Why It Didn't Get a Sequel

Director Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns was actually a good movie, and I thought Brandon Routh did a great job in the role of Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman. He just has that wonderful Superman charm. He was the closest thing we got to Christopher Reeve from the original Superman films.

At the time, I actually would have liked to see a sequel made, but that sequel was never meant to be. Singer was actually working out a deal for a sequel with Warner Bros. before the movie was even released because everyone had faith in the project and they thought it would be a much bigger success than it was.

Routh appeared as a guest on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside of You and he talked about the movie and explained why a sequel didn’t happen. He said:

"The movie was widely well-reviewed, people liked the movie, but it, you know, made almost $400 million worldwide but that wasn't enough. And it was a very slow fizzle out of the possibility of a sequel over the next two, three years and I did everything that I could do, that I thought, in my world to help make it happen."

Playing Superman was an opportunity of a lifetime for Routh, and I imagine watching the film slowly fizzle at the box office was a rough experience for him and there was really nothing he could do to help. Over time his fame from playing Superman faded as well, and while he’s had a solid career, it’s not what it could’ve been had the movie been a bigger success.

In a previous interview with Geek House Show, Routh said that "the intention was to do a sequel," but "Warner Brothers decided that it was too much of a gamble for them." On top of that, it’s explained that several of the creative people who were involved with the project moved on and stopped fighting to get a sequel made. He said:

"The director and the writers kind of were on to other things, and certain people at the studio who were excited about Superman had left to go on to other projects and other studios. And so it was both the passion and interest in Superman dissipated, and also the movie didn't, I guess for them, bring back enough monetary success for them to actually pull the trigger on it."

Routh also opened up about the trauma he faced during that time in his life, saying: "I would say that the end of my run as Superman in Superman Returns that did not pan out the way I thought it was going to, the way everyone around me thought it was going to. I had to really come to terms with a lot of that.”

Routh became addicted to playing World of Warcraft. It became a compulsion, but he says his wife, Courtney Ford, was able to help him emerge on the other side: “She knew me best then, she knows me best now and so going through that whole trauma of Superman Returns, the end of Superman Returns was a long, drawn-out process of me in denial for much of it and thankfully, I guess, I didn't lean on drugs or alcohol, partying. I played World of Warcraft endlessly ... it wasn't helping me. It was a coping mechanism but it wasn't teaching me things until I finally came, you know, had several experiences where I had to come to terms with that and she was part of that.”

While this was a rough experience for Routh, he managed to get through it and he ended up having the opportunity to play the Kingdom Come version of Superman on the Arrowverse, and it was awesome to see him suit up again!

As you know, Warner Bros. started working on rebooting Superman again, and it went through a few different hands until Zack Snyder came along and made Man of Steel.

Would you have liked to see Routh get to make a Superman Returns sequel at the time?