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How do you make your mark on a project that has been done before while honoring the elements worth keeping? No one has confronted this issue more than the creative team behind Superman's latest iteration, the big-screen Superman Returns, which debuts June 30. To better understand Superman's evolution, Bryan Singer, the film's director, whose previous hits include The Usual Suspects and X-Men I and II, talked Warner Bros. into first producing a documentary that traced Superman's history. The process helped him decide where to stay loyal to the mythology and where to experiment. "I'm not trying to sit here and say, 'Well, he's going to be my Superman!'" he says. "The character is going to exist long after I'm dead."

With so much history behind the film, Singer, 40, faces a real risk: Any major changes may generate a backlash among Superman's loyal fans. So he has been careful to consult his creative team at every critical moment. "I surround myself with people who understand me and aren't afraid to tell me when I'm straying," he says. "They're not sycophants, they're friends." In the following pages, Fast Company asks five of his intrepid allies what it takes to breathe new life into a 70-year-old superhero.

Chris Lee

Executive producer
Los Angeles, California

Lee, 49, rose through the Hollywood ranks from script reader to president of production at Columbia TriStar Pictures before becoming an independent producer in 1998.

"After Bryan called me, I went out and bought $400 of archived comic books. The guy behind the counter asked me if I was doing a thesis. Some producers are nuts-and-bolts line and budget guys. I'm a creative producer, someone who's involved with the story, casting, everything. With casting, some people felt the first film got too campy. Lex Luthor and Otis, his henchman, had this theme music, 'The March of the Villains.' We avoided that completely. The challenge was to surprise people. Sure, we picked veteran actors, but we were very selective until we got to the unexpected choices, like Parker Posey [as Kitty Kowalski].

Another concern was the longtime fans. We wanted to find a way to communicate with them that this film was legitimate and authentic. We wanted them to know that we pay homage to the genesis of Superman, but we didn't feel we had to tell the same story all over again. We needed one outlet that the fans already knew; it was important to us that we not put anything on a corporate site. We checked out a bunch of existing sites, and I met with Justin Korthof, who runs the fan site BlueTights Network (www.bluetights.net). We worked out a situation where we backed up his servers and provided movie blogs. It's a fan boy's dream come true. It has been a great relationship for us, because the fans have a lot to say. If you look at their comments and the homemade trailers they make and post on the site, they have carried the torch for this film far longer than we have. Yes, they're very particular about certain things, but ultimately, they just want to be entertained."