I spent two days on the set of Dead of Night, the Dylan Dog movie starring Brandon Routh. In my time there I saw Routh to be just about one of the nicest people I had ever met. Like, scary nice. He ate lunch with his mom and dad one day in just about the cutest display of Midwestern family values ever.

It was that niceness that really made me cringe when someone brought up the inevitable Superman question to him. I feel really bad for Routh because, whatever Superman Returns‘ shortcomings were, the ones that made the film fail were not his. And yet every time he gets a microphone put in front of his face he gets asked about coming back to the role, despite everybody involved knowing it’s a charade: there will not be a sequel to Bryan Singer’s movie.

Maybe people can leave the poor dude alone now; in an interview with Omelet on the set of Scott Pilgrim he says that his contract with Warner Bros has expired. If there’s a clearer indication that the studio is letting the film just float away like a boring, bad dream I don’t know what it could be.

What’s happening now is that Warner Bros is waiting everybody out – and that includes you, the folks in  the audience. When they can start fresh with new folks behind and in front of the camera, and when you get some distance from Returns, we’ll hear news about a Superman movie. Until then, leave Routh be.

via Slashfilm