Director 'Wanted To Keep Superman's Red Pants'

Director Zack Snyder has revealed that he wanted to keep Superman in his trademark red underpants in the forthcoming movie reboot Man Of Steel, but was overruled.

The 300 and Watchmen filmmaker explained to the New York Post that a huge number of designs were considered before a costume was eventually chosen.

"[It] was a big deal for me, and we played around for a long time," he explained.

"I tried like crazy to keep the red briefs on him. Everyone else said, 'You can't have the briefs on him'. I looked at probably 1,500 versions of the costumes with the briefs on."

But he stressed that the costume wasn't too big a departure from the one used in the comic book and in previous movies.

"If you look at the costume, it's very modern, but the relationship to the original costume is strong.

"You come onto a project like this, and you hear about modernisation and you hear about bringing things forward to today, and all you can do is hope that it's going to look cool and different from anything you've seen before."

A new trailer for the film is set to debut with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey next month. The film itself is released in June next year.