It's been quite a ride, and Singer recently talked at length about the X-sequel and the franchise. Following is an edited transcription from an interview with Singer last month, just before X2 opened.

QUESTION: Did you go right from filming the first one into development on X2?
BRYAN SINGER: No, there was a period of rest but the ideas for the story germinated during the making of the first film. It carried slowly into the script development stage and eventually the prep and shoot. Gradual, so there was some time between them.

QUESTION: In the new movie, you don't spend a lot of time re-introducing the characters.
SINGER: I call it the Lost Horizon concept. You make a film, as they did with Lost Horizon. They made it three hours long, they took an hour to establish all the characters aboard a plane. The plane crashes and they go on an adventure. Then when they looked at the picture they said, "This is a really long picture." So then they cut the first hour off. But because they had that first hour for the characters to develop and for their relationship to evolve, when they finally crashed and discovered the lost city and whatnot, you really felt that you knew the characters.

I think this film, X2, is designed to stand on its own as a film, as a separate entity. It's kind of like the movie I could've, would've, should've made the first time, but could not have made without having made the first.

I think now that those characters are so defined, even when they move into X2, you know where they're coming from. The universe is somewhat established. You see them use their powers very early on.

There's a few things I put in there, like in Lord of the Rings, he opens the picture with the dream, with McKellen falling and fighting the dragon, and likewise there's certain things, certain gifts, for the audience so they can catch up to speed, but ultimately it seemed like there was no point to it. The characters were already moving forward and I didn't want to move backward and waste that kind of time.

QUESTION: There's a scene where Wolverine is covered in blood and lots of stabbing. Was this movie ever in danger of getting an R rating? SINGER: Yeah, originally we got an R rating and there were just a few minor things of intensity that were trimmed. Very little. I was really pleased. There's very little blood in the movie. There's some intensity in it but it's not a gory picture by any means and it's somewhat heroic and no one is...like in the first picture we had Rogue get stabbed right through the chest by Wolverine, but we solved those problems in the story and it's kind of fun and the audience realizes that there's not a terrifying threat and it's not a massacre. It's heroes having to defeat villains.

QUESTION: Was there more pressure on you doing the sequel then there was on the first one?
SINGER: No. Not really. I think some of the pressure was alleviated by the fact that fans, the core audience who've supported the X-Men universe for 40 years really embraced the first picture. There was more time and money this time around and I had a better sense of what I was doing because I'd already established these characters and I'd already cut my teeth in the genre. So I felt a little less pressure and actually a little more freedom.

QUESTION: How do you want to go with the franchise? Will we ever see the Sentinels?
SINGER: It's possible. I couldn't say specifically. The war is always getting larger in their universe and their conflict as more mutants are born every day.

QUESTION: I like the way you opened up the story. I found myself rooting for characters. Is that something you were going for?

SINGER: Absolutely. One of the fun parts of an ensemble picture, especially there are so many characters, where the lines of good and evil are blurring constantly, there's a lot more room for unpredictability and surprise.

You're following one character on a journey and you find it disrupted by another character and then another character introduces another mystery and then that's solved, just as more characters are introduced and unholy alliances are formed, but not quite. Ever since I made Usual Suspects I've enjoyed the challenge of ensemble pictures and so this time with X2 it's like, "OK, we've got all these characters, bring on a couple more."

I enjoy that challenge: balancing.
QUESTION: The franchise could go on forever. How will you say goodbye to this franchise?
SINGER: I think when the time comes for me to say goodbye it will not be that hard at all, but until that time I enjoy myself.

QUESTION: Are you going to do another one?
SINGER: I'm not sure. I don't know. I have ideas and things have been established in this film that would lend themselves to future pictures but at the same time, circumstances have to be appropriate. I'd probably like to do something in between. I don't know if it's back to my roots of smaller films or go and make another kind of event picture. I'm not sure yet. I'm developing things.

QUESTION: This could be your Star Wars?
SINGER: That's a good analogy.

QUESTION: Can you talk more about war aspects and about relations to current events?
SINGER: I think a lot of those are very coincidental. The storyline was conceived prior to September 11th and remember the X-Men universe was created in the early '60s during the height of the American Civil Rights movement. So these ideas of bigotry, tolerance, fear, war, fear among society, I think, are perpetual ideas. We've had them for thousands of years ever since man recognized his fellow man and they saw that two people had different color hair.

So I think it is oddly relevant. I desperately tried to not to let current events as they unfolded impact the process of making this film. This film is, for me, primarily a wonderful piece of fantasy entertainment. I think if it didn't have some relevance to some social issues or some personal issues then it wouldn't be truly entertaining. I think truly entertaining movies affect you. I think Star Wars talked about growing up and religion and myth and many kind of serious things, but in a spectacular way. I think good science fiction ultimately tells stories of the human condition from an extraordinary perspective.

So in that way, it's ironic but there's nothing wrong with it. But it is eerie in certain aspects.

QUESTION: In a way the film is very anti-establishment. There are a lot of people who look like special ops getting killed, police getting killed, the air force getting dogged. Did you worry about that in these times?
SINGER: No, not at all. The soldiers depicted in this film are truly following...they're not even working for the United States. They're working up in Alberta in a secret base. They're working for a person who's completely rogue from the government. The President of the United States is very on the fence and very concerned, justifiable, about the issue. There are mutants who possess incredible power and who are terribly violent and dangerous to human society and mutant society. I view these as henchmen.

In terms of airplanes getting dogged and police getting dogged, no one in that sphere is seriously harmed. It's not about bullying the authority. I personally have tremendous faith and support of our authorities and military.

Having shown it to friends of mine that are in the military, they get a kick out of the fact these soldiers are a bunch of rogue dirtbags who get what's coming to them. And then we see that. We definitely see that. This guy Stryker, he's operating in his own universe. He's tricking the President. He's conning the President into his operation. So it's quite the opposite, if anything. He's more of a terrorist.

QUESTION: How involved are you in the video game spin-offs from the movie?
SINGER: The Wolverine's Revenge game was designed separately from the picture, but what I did was I had the game creators come on up and take a look at the sets and tour them and take a look at a lot of our artwork and our conceptual designs and take them through some of the story and so that they would be able to infuse the game with a lot of the properties that we created, a lot of the designs. It's nice. It's created kind of a synergy between the game and the movie, but at the same time, the game stands alone and the movie stands alone.

QUESTION: How intrusive is that? By the time you factor in the DVD and the video game, how intrusive is all that on the movie-making process? SINGER: I don't find it intrusive at all. It's a welcome distraction. I shoot pretty tight movies. I don't shoot a lot of fat, a lot of things to cut off or cut out as it were, but ultimately if there's a moment that you find precious that you've shot, and you know it just doesn't work in the context of the picture, you always have that in the back of your mind, "Oh, I'm putting this one on the DVD"

I think, for that, as a filmmaker it's real fun. There's one little beat in X-Men 2, a subtle little beat that I was very proud of, just directorially, it's very subtle and silly, but for me I'll enjoy putting that on the DVD.

And then getting some perspective from it. I was able to with X-Men 1.5, get some perspective on the movie a year later and actually talk about it on a running commentary, which I didn't feel I was able to do the first time around.

QUESTION: Has it gotten to the point with these event kind of films, where you actually start discussing the DVD prior to the shoot?
SINGER: What I do, in the case of the X-Men 1 and the X2 DVD, there's a gentlemen named Rob Burnett, who's a DVD producer, who I've been friends with for years and he produced the re-release of the Usual Suspects DVD. He does a really good job and is very creative and very thoughtful. He kind of outlines the kinds of things he'd like to do and then I tell him a few of the things that I think would be interesting and then I step away from it.

I provide him with materials he needs, throughout the process and give him what time I can, but I will not allow anything to intrude, whether it's the marketing or the publicity or press or any of these aspects to intrude the process of making the film because it would ultimately sabotage the entire event itself.

QUESTION: How cruel a mistress is the calendar?
SINGER: Well, the days that Bonnie and Clyde could open in two theaters and then sweep America and become the biggest movie over the course of a year are over. You really have these opening weekends. You know where you stand by Friday at nine o'clock.

Yeah, it's very frustrating and it's frightening, but at the same time the dates have tremendous value. I recognize the value of being one of the first major summer films out this round.

I also believe that a film is never finished. It's merely abandoned. In the case of my films they're usually ripped from my fingers.

Like financial limitations, scheduling limitations breed creative solutions. I try to work within them responsibly. But if I were to do a more independent movie, a more exploration film, I would go the style prior, where you put your money together, you make your film and then you put it out there when someone buys it.

QUESTION: Is there a time when you might say no to money?
SINGER: I take a mixed philosophy about that, somewhere in between the two. It is my responsibility to the project to fight for as much resources as I can get, within the context that I think is necessary for that film.

I did a movie called Apt Pupil some time ago with very little money, but the plot didn't require, and it would have been irresponsible if I had spent a lot more money because it was very daring and quite dark. The gamble wasn't worth it.

In the case of X2 you feel more comfortable spending more money because you know there's a wider audience and you know you're building on a saga, a universe, franchise, whatever you call it. But I also respect the fact that with all my battles, I always set my mark higher than the actual budget.

In the case of X-Men 1, I was trying to make a $100 million picture for $75 million. In the case of X2 I'm trying to make a $200 million picture for $120 million. So, I'm always tasking myself and always presenting those limitations. I believe in what Spielberg says, that truly those kinds of limitations breed amazing creative solutions, as he discovered with the classic scenario of the shark in Jaws which never worked. As a result we got the barrels in the water and everyone's terrified.

QUESTION: I've read that you are committed to making a movie that is both a blockbuster and an intelligent movie. Were there struggles the first time around in making the movie that you wanted to make?
SINGER: There were. I would be lying to you if I told you there weren't. But they also new that I was the director of Unusual Suspects and Apt Pupil and my first feature Public Access and they had seen those movies and they understood the style at which I approached filmmaking.

I remember Bill Mechanic and Tom Rothman at the studio at the time, had just seen Apt Pupil which is incredibly dark, and we walked out the screening and I said, "Do you still want me to do this X-Men picture?"

And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. This thing's not supposed to make money. You'll do great. I love your style."

I was like, "OK."

So I approached it and I took this universe as seriously as I would take, as I imagine Robert Wise took The Day The Earth Stood Still. In that way I would please fans, because the X-Men fans take this universe very seriously and they support it and have supported it for forty years, and also I would help, because I never came from a comic-book reading background, bridge the gap between the fans and the uninitiated.

QUESTION: Do you now get mobbed by fans, or have people running after you saying, "Why did you do that," or "Why didn't you do this?"
SINGER: I just keep cutting my hair so nobody knows what the hell I look like.

I enjoy going to comic-book stores. I look around and see what's there and occasionally someone will say, "Hi." I also enjoy going to the comic conventions. I was terrified to go when the first X-Men movie was about to come out because there was so much skepticism. Then I found myself before several thousand people at the convention in San Diego and it was a very warm reception.

It's kind of interesting to me because I never grew up reading comics and now things that I directly created in the film have now translated in the evolution of the comic book and that's just baffling and astonishing to me.

QUESTION: How have the fans treated you?
SINGER: They're very sweet. I was a Trekkie and a sci-fi fan myself, hard-core, just comic books were never my fortes. I may have betrayed them if I was too mired in the comic book early on. I surrounded myself with people who are very knowledgeable about the comic book, and I'm extremely knowledgeable about it, but who are entrenched in it and also entrenched in the fan base, who can advise me one way or another. Like, "I'm gonna make this one character do this one little, extra thing. Is that gonna be cool? Is anybody gonna complain?"

I override the lore a little, but still maintain the essence of the characters.

QUESTION: How was it to be on the bridge of Star Trek in Nemesis? SINGER: Oh, it was a thrill. The two thrills of my life, besides having the opportunity to make movies and all that stuff, is spending 12 hours on the bridge of the Enterprise in a Starfleet uniform as it was rocking back and forth with pyrotechnics on a giant gimble with the entire cast.

And when Patrick Stewart, two weeks later, invited me to have dinner over at his house and he said he had a surprise. I was like, "Oh, what's the surprise? Maybe it's pictures of me in my Starfleet uniform," which he had. But we're sitting there having a little hors d'oeuvres and suddenly the doorbell rings and William Shatner comes in and joins us for dinner. Then I went upstairs after dinner and played Next Generation pinball with William Shatner at Patrick Stewart's house.

Rob Allstetter, Deputy Sports Editor for the Detroit News, has been a comics journalist for the past decade, having written for numerous publications. He currently publishes The Comics Contiuum. He can be reached at: RobAlls@aol.com.

The Trailer Park Archive

July 2 2003 - Hellboy June 25, 2003 - Ang Lee June 18, 2003 - Eric Bana June 11, 2003 - Spider-Man Animation June 4 , 2003 - Lou Ferrigno May 27 , 2003 - Teen Titans May 20 , 2003 - Bryan Singer May 14 , 2003 - Al Gough May 8 , 2003 - Kelly Hu April 22, 2003 - Aaron Stanford April 18, 2003 - James Marsden April 15, 2003 - Jaime King April 8, 2003 - Halle Berry April 2, 2003 - Anna Paquin March 26 , 2003 - Scott McNeil March 21 , 2003 - Alan Cumming March 18 , 2003 - Michael Rosenbaum March 14 , 2003 - Ted Raimi: The "Other" Raimi Is Coming Back March 11 , 2003 - Maria Canals likes the call of the wild March 7 , 2003 - John Shea - Welcome to Mutant X March 4 , 2003 - Anthony Cistaro - Witchblade February 27 , 2003 - David Kaye - Professor X February 18 , 2003 - Victor Webster February 14 , 2003 - Ben Affleck February 11 , 2003 - Colin Farrell February 7 , 2003 - Comic Controversy? January 31 , 2003 - Static Shock January 24 , 2003 - Jennifer Garner