With Man Of Steel looming on the horizon, Zack Snyder has been talking about what sets his version of Superman apart from those that have gone before.
“When they try to dress him up… put him in jeans and a t-shirt or a leather jacket with an S on it, I go, ‘What? Guys, it’s okay. It’s Superman. He’s the king daddy. You should all be bowing down to him.’
“He’s a really cool mythological contradiction… he’s incredibly familiar Americana and alien, exotic, bizarroland, but beautifully woven together…All of us, in a weird way, are that same kind of contradiction — no one’s that simple.”
You certainly get the impression that for Snyder, the criticisms that are occasionally levelled at the character – too bland, too conventionally “good” – are the things that set him apart.
““I feel like my movies have always been very subversive,” says the director, “even when people haven’t perceived how subversive they really are. For me, what’s subversive about Superman is that it’s not subversive.”
Co-starring Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams and Russell Crowe, Man Of Steel opens in the UK on 14 June 2013.
