Here is the second part of my CBM exclusive interview with Gene Fallaize, writer, director, and co-producer of the upcoming 'Superman: Requiem' fan film.
In this part Gene gives us more information on the running time of the film, what influenced the plot, and if we can expect to see any interesting cameos.
In this movie we see Superman dealing with the loss of his powers, was this decision influenced by budget?
When I wrote the film last Summer I knew that being a fan-film we wouldn’t have much in the way of budget, so tried to think of a way to make sure costs could be saved, while still making an interesting story. Sure, like many fans, I’d love to see an all-out action Superman film, but realistically without much of a budget that wasn’t something we could do, and if we tried I think it would have come back to haunt us, so I chose to go in another direction – make Superman still Superman, but without some of his powers, leaving him to still have to be the Man of Steel, but raising the suspense knowing that he can’t just defeat them in the ways he is used to. We’ve still got some of what Superman does best, but also we’ve got a very exposed Superman, who we’re pretty much pushing to the edge by taking his powers away and saying to him “Now try and be Superman”.
No, straight off the bat I wanted it to be feature length, but short enough to be forgiving. Short films are incredibly hard to get audiences to relate to as there is only so much someone can relate to a character on a screen if you only see a 10 minute glimpse of their fictional life, so a feature was a must to get in the story and action sequences that we wanted to. The film should come out at around the 80-85 minute mark, long enough to allow audiences to take it seriously and relate to the characters and the story, but short enough to be forgiving as a low budget Superhero action film, so that we didn’t need to include long drawn-out sequences and over-complicated sub-plots.
The Superman Theme by John Williams is considered by many fans to be classic and timeless, is it something you're going to be using in this film?
Yes, for me John Williams themes are as definitive now as the red cape and boots, so I wouldn’t want a Superman film without it. We’ve got our amazing composer Joseph Bennie who is composing a score based on John Williams themes, while still composing lots of new elements and themes specifically for this film. In fact just yesterday I heard the first cuts of the first 6 minutes of the film, and all I can say is... wow! I just can’t wait for fans to hear it.
Superman is a globally known character, and his fans can be quite skeptical and criticising when it comes to adaptions of their beloved Man of Steel, how do you plan on giving a fresh take on the hero, while keeping fans pleased and interested?
Yes, this is something we discovered quite early on! I think this issue is that being a comic book character with many interpretations in his 72 year history, Superman has lots of different ‘parallel universes’, so we had to choose which one we were going to set it in and go from there. I think the thing to remember is that we are only one film, so we can’t please those fans who want other interpretations of the character, but those fans do have the benefit of having Snyder’s movie coming next year too, so hopefully between the two movies a good portion of fans will find one they enjoy that meets their tastes for what Superman should be. We’re not claiming to make the definitive Superman film, but something by fans that we hope audiences the world over will enjoy. We don’t have millions of dollars at our disposal either, so we’re doing all we can with the resources we have available, and hopefully fans will understand and respect how much work and dedication is going into this project, whether or not the story itself is of their particular preference. No Superman film has yet been able to please all the fans, and we don’t expect to either, but we have and will continue to make the best film we can to try and please as many fans as possible.
Will we see any nods to other DC characters in the movie?
We might have a sneaky reference or two, but we wanted to keep it pretty grounded as a Superman movie on its own.
Can fans expect to see any cameos in the film?
We are speaking to a number of actors about having a cameo in the film at the moment, including a couple of Superman veterans ...I can’t say much more than that at the moment, but if it all goes well it will be quite amazing!
You can check out the first part of my interview HERE