Brandon Routh and Sam Huntington scored their breakthrough roles in Warner Bros.' 2006 blockbuster Superman Returns playing Clark Kent/The Man of Steel and his trusty BFF Jimmy Olsen, respectively. But while the film grossed $391 million worldwide, a sequel never materialized. This week, the off-screen friends reunite in the indie comic book noir Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, about a hard-boiled investigator of the supernatural (Routh) on a case with his trusty BFF (Huntington) by his side. Given their easy hero-sidekick rapport in the film, it's hard not to think of the specter of Superman.
As it turns out, Routh and Huntington still have Superman on their minds. In the five years since Superman Returns hit screens, both actors started families, took on other projects, and learned the hard way not to assume that even hundreds of millions in box office returns necessarily means sequels are a lock. Sitting down together with Movieline, Routh and Huntington spoke wistfully of the Superman Returns sequel that never was, and more importantly, the lessons they took away from the frustrating experience.
Coming up, Routh (who most recently appeared on the TV series Chuck and in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) has an indie he shot last year that'll make the festival rounds (Missing William) and Huntington, who begins the second season of the U.S. series Being Human, is embarking on a screenwriting career with a script entitled Valley of the Valley set up with Ben Stiller's production company. Dylan Dog, directed by TMNT's Kevin Munroe, opens wide Friday courtesy of Freestyle Releasing in an unconventional move for a modestly budgeted genre indie. Movieline chatted with the Dylan Dog duo about their off-screen/on-screen chemistry, the challenges of Americanizing the original Italian comic, and how exactly they first heard that they wouldn't be reprising their roles in Superman Returns 2.
How did it happen that you both came onboard Dylan Dog? Brandon, you came on first -- did you give Sam a call?
Brandon Routh: Sam had actually gone in and read for Marcus; I had gotten the script and read it and called him up and said, "There's this great movie that I might do -- there's this great character, you should look into it!" And he said, "I already have!" Then when we found that out we knew we had to do it.
What a coincidence!
Sam Huntington: Yeah it was, because we had kind of been wanting to work together and this was the perfect opportunity to do it.
You two have great chemistry together and you've obviously known each other for years, but what's the secret to your buddy chemistry onscreen? Does it spring from your friendship in real life?
BR: I think absolutely it does. I think part of it comes from just knowing each other and our senses of humor, so we can kind of tell when somebody's going to pick up the joke...
SH: Or fill in the...
BR: Blank. [Laughs] Or know from the way he's looking that he has something to say, and then you pass the conversation...
SH: ... to me! This is true. Oh God.
BR: It's like a game of badminton.
Did you have freedom to play around and improvise on set?
BR: For sure, which is one of the fun things. Kevin [Munroe] was very collaborative. The script was great when we got it. So it was just adding some things from our relationship when you're in it, in the scene. Some little things you can add to make them come to life even more.
Which scenes, for example?
BR: We added stuff like the kicking of the door...
SH: That whole elevator scene, too -- there's a scene that's cut out of the film that's basically us riffing in an elevator, that I remember being really funny! But honestly, I would say in almost every scene there are little pieces of our relationship.
Now Sam, your character was completely re-written from the original sidekick in the comics, because in the comics he's a twist on Groucho Marx and that opens up all sorts of rights issues...
SH: Completely different. I think there were many reasons why they didn't use Groucho Marx -- and I think for me, perhaps the biggest reason not to use Groucho Marx is because I don't know how it would have translated to a film, this bizarre, eccentric character who dresses and acts like Groucho Marx all the time?
BR: It might have been more of an art film...
SH: Yeah, it would have been really avant-garde. It works really well in the comic books, I'm not taking anything away from that, I just think that was probably the main reason not to use it. Obviously the Marx estate is another reason, because I don't think they could get the rights. But I'm glad they couldn't because I got to play this wonderful role, and it was original so I got to kind of birth it.
What were the challenges in Americanizing such a beloved Italian comic book property?
BR: The challenge comes with, how will Italian and other European fans take it? Because things have to change in any film adaptation. Lord of the Rings, there were many changes that had to happen and I'm sure there are many people who still aren't happy with what wasn't in the movie, or if this person arrived in the story before they were supposed to. The Spider Queen wasn't in the second book, it was in the third book -- it should have been in Two Towers. So you just have to know that's going to happen, people aren't going to like it and I'm sorry for those people. The movie is enjoyable, I hope, to most people, it's there for entertainment.
SH: I also don't think there's anything about Dylan Dog that is necessarily inherently Italian. I don't think there's anything about it that doesn't translate.
It does call to mind the Italian tradition of spaghetti westerns, which borrowed heavily from outside cultural influences.
SH: Absolutely! And [Brandon] had a really eloquent thing to say about the comic book actually borrowing a lot from early American cinema.
BR: Everything is -- popular culture is taking this from that and a piece of this; everything is always changing. Even when they do remakes things are changed. At least we're having some kind of original material, in the fact that it was a comic book now coming to the screen, versus remaking some other movie that we've seen already and that's been done, just to make money.
What was the reason it took so long for the film to make its way into theaters?
SH: That's a good question. I think some movies just take a little longer to come out. It's a lot of stuff that we don't really concern ourselves with, to be honest.
BR: It's also, really, an independent film. It's a slightly larger budget -- it's not a small $1 to $2 million indie, but it's not a large budget movie. So when that happens, the film business is a tough market. You see how many movies with huge name actors go straight to DVD. Sometimes it's not because the movie's bad, even; it's because they couldn't get the business side together to get it sold.
And Dylan Dog is actually opening wide! Are you guys thinking about possible sequels already?
BR: I think we were thinking when we filmed it how fun it would be to explore the story, where it would go. And I think there's ample room for it to happen. I think it just always depends on box office -- as we both know extremely well from another movie that we did together!
SH: [Sighs] Abso-lutely!
[Sarcastically] Why, whatever could you be referring to?
SH: Oh, it's nothing. It was small...
BR: Because even when a movie makes $400 million worldwide, it still doesn't constitute a sequel.
SH: God, it's so bizarre.
When did that realization hit you both, that a Superman Returns sequel wasn't going to go after all? Was there a big phone call from Bryan Singer or anything?
BR: Nope. Never a phone call.
SH: No. It just kind of fizzled away.
BR: I found out like everyone else... on the internet.
SH: Yeah, my wife worked at Warner Bros. so she kind of kept her ear to the tracks a little bit.
BR: Right, it wasn't like we were ignorant to the murmurings that were going around.
SH: It's a bummer, because we poured our hearts into that movie. And it was a cool movie.
And it did make quite a bit of money, by any standard.
BR: It's one of those things, you know; we made that movie and we were really happy with it, and it did, in my estimation, pretty well. [Laughs] And you think, "Oh, we're gonna do a sequel," because you look at Spider-Man and its sequels, and all this kind of stuff. So we kind of just assumed that that was going to happen. I think with this [Dylan Dog], going forward, we understood the real world aspect of it, how it is. So we're very hesitant to the proposition.
SH: Right, right. Live and learn. But then again, if it does come out and make $100 million opening weekend, fuck it! It would be great, but it is what it is.
Sam, you've got a few writing projects in the works, correct?
SH: I do! I have one that used to be at DreamWorks and is now at Paramount, that we're kind of on our third first draft of. We're paired up with Red Hour, which is Ben Stiller's company, and actually I have a meeting next week to finalize this draft and turn it into the studio and see what they think. It'll actually be the first time that anyone at Paramount [sees it], because it's been a long time -- I've been unavailable and we've been working on this other draft, it's just been piecemeal. So now we've just finally finished it. We'll see what happens, but a lot of the time, you know, if the production company likes it it's not always the case that the studio will like it. But we'll see! Right now it's called Valley of the Valley. Very L.A.-centric.