It's big, it's costly; it's the Superman movie

October 17, 2005

And the super-budget blockbuster is being shot in Sydney, writes Garry Maddox.

All heart ... Brandon Routh is the new and lovelorn Superman.


Jimmy Olsen - or at least the actor playing him - calls it "a behemoth of a movie".

And the director, Bryan Singer, has said the budget is close to $US250 million ($333 million).

That makes Superman Returns, which has been filming in Sydney, one of the most expensive Hollywood movies to be shot anywhere.

While Hollywood budgets are notoriously difficult to pinpoint, it is likely to be more expensive than King Kong, Mission: Impossible 3, the two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and Spider-Man 3, though less than the next Harry Potter movie.


The chief executive of the NSW Film and Television Office, Jane Smith, said the production was worth more to the state than The Matrix, which cost almost $100 million, though not as much as the two sequels, which cost more than $420 million.

The contribution to the economy has included wages for cast, crew and extras, accommodation, travel and construction as well as studio and equipment hire.


While it will have some big action sequences, Singer has described it as "first and foremost a love story" with Superman realising that his true love, Lois Lane, has moved on with her life.

After a break, reputedly to allow the charismatic filmmaker to celebrate his 40th birthday in the US, filming is resuming soon. One crew member said "a few more street sequences" and "some fairly major action pieces" are still to be shot.

While nothing is confirmed for Fox Studios when Superman flies out, there are other so-called runaway Hollywood movies seeking a location that could end up in Sydney. Without naming movies, the new chief executive of AusFilm, Mark Woods, said a familiarisation tour of Hollywood studios this month indicated reasonable prospects for runaway productions in each of the eastern states next year.

Said Smith: "There's still considerable interest in coming to shoot here ... even though the Australian dollar is relatively robust. Sydney is a city that people are prepared to come and spend a substantial amount of time in. They like the fact that it's quite cosmopolitan."
