With the release of James Gunn’s Superman on the 2025 movies schedule last month, you may have felt inclined to revisit past movies focused on DC Comics’ Man of Steel after seeing David Corenswet play him. In 2006, Brandon Routh was in his shoes when Superman Returns came out and propelled him to international stardom. However, in the years since, Routh has heard his version of Superman described as “pervy,” and he provided a wholesome explanation for why he doesn’t agree with the people who think this.
Routh, who can currently be seen in the new movie Ick, appeared on The Sackhoff Show to talk about his career with host Katee Sackhoff. While discussing with The Mandalorian actress how one audience could respond differently to an actor’s performance compared to others, the former Superman shared the following:
I've talked to people who watched Superman Returns, for instance, and who were always bugged out thinking Superman was pervy by watching Lois and Richard have a conversation in the house early on the movie. I don't think I ever thought of that oddly when I first read it because I thought, ‘It’s Superman. He literally can see and hear anybody anywhere. He leaves. He doesn't watch him do anything non-ok. Give him the benefit of the doubt, it's Superman.’ But so many people had thought that there was a bad Superman because of that. They couldn't get over that, which is just interesting thing for people to catch on.
Serving as a spiritual sequel to Christopher Reeves’ first two Superman movies, Superman Returns (which can be streamed with an HBO Max subscription) saw Brandon Routh’s Clark returning to Earth five years after he embarked to find Krypton’s remains and see if there were any surviving Kryptonians. In the time he was gone, Lois Lane became engaged to Jason White, nephew of The Daily Planet’s editor-in-chief Perry White, and they had a five-year-old son named Jason. At one point, Superman hovered near the family’s house to listen and watched (using his X-ray vision) Lois talk about her past relationship with the Man of Steel, denying she ever loved him.
Granted, it was later revealed that Jason was actually Lois and Superman’s biological son, but that’s not the point here. From Brandon Routh’s perspective, it never occurred to him to think of Superman as “pervy” because it’s not in character for him. It’s not like Clark is going to be a creep and stick around as Lois and Richard engage in NSFW activity. So that particular criticism hasn’t made sense to him, but it’s common enough that multiple people have brought it up to him.
Although Brandon Routh’s time as Superman on the big screen ended up being a one-and-done deal after Superman Returns sequel plans were scrapped, he reprised the role over a decade later for the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover on The CW. He also left another mark on DC media playing Ray Palmer, a.k.a. The Atom, in that same small screen franchise. As far as I know, Ray’s never been called “pervy,” but feel free to let me know in the comments if you think otherwise.
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