SUBMITTED BY Kit-Kat

June 25, 2006 — On how "Superman Returns" feels like more of an emotional movie, rather than the typical superhero style made for teenage boys, director Bryan Singer tells Senior Writer Sean Smith that the movie is his "first chick flick. There's plenty of stuff for the boys, but in the past I've made movies that boys have to drag their girlfriends to," Singer tells Newsweek in an interview in the July 3-July 10 issue (on newsstands Monday, June 26). "This one shows my friends that I have a romantic side. They have accused me of having affairs with my movies, to the point where [they take the place of] human romance."

Responding to rumors that the budget for the movie had topped $300 million, Singer says, "My production budget on "Superman Returns" was $204 million. The approved budget was $184.5 million. We had projected overages for visual effects, and there was a sequence that I wanted that was going to cost an extra $2.3 million. So the hard, honest number is $204 million," Singer tells Newsweek. "It's aggravating, because all of my movies have been fiscally responsible. If anything, I go out of my way to figure out how to operate with financial constraints because I think good ideas come out of that," he says.

Singer also talks of his childhood: "I graduated high school with a GPA of 1.9. I'm dyslexic, so I can't read very fast. I'm terrible with math, and I get distracted easily. My parents hate when I talk about this, but that's the way it was. I was beat up a lot. I had big hair. I wore the same pair of jeans every day."