'Superman Returns' at 20: Is it a sequel? Is it a reboot? Two decades on, we're still not sure

It's a contested field, but John Williams' majestic "Superman" theme is up there with the best the composer's ever written. Almost five decades on, that stirring orchestral march remains synonymous with Krypton's most famous son, still more than capable of making grown men want to run out of telephone boxes (remember those?) while ripping their shirts open. It's perhaps not surprising, then, that Bryan Singer couldn't imagine using any other music when signed up to direct "Superman Returns", which celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend. "From day one, Bryan said he wouldn't even greenlight the movie if he couldn't use the John Williams music," composer John Ottman told IGN at the time of release. "That's how important it was to Bryan. I had moments of wanting to evolve the theme a little bit and alter it slightly, but Bryan was against any modifications at all, even down to the last flute flourish." But the filmmaker's devotion to Richard Donner's classic 1978 "Superman: The Movie" (still undoubtedly the best "Superman" movie ) stretched way beyond replicating that famous score — a homage James Gunn repeated in his own Man of Steel reboot last year. Because, for better and worse, "Superman Returns" is an unashamed love letter to the film that made us believe a man could fly all those years ago. " Smallville " may have been flying high on TV, but the early '00s had hardly soared for DC on the big screen. …