In "Superman Returns," Superman (Brandon Routh, pictured as Clark Kent) encounters a Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) betrothed to someone else, and for once, his super powers cannot rescue him.

LOIS LANE may be implausibly clueless. (Does Clark Kent really look that different without glasses?) And her spelling has never been worse. ("How many F's in 'catastrophe'?" she asks.) But in "Superman Returns" she has finally won a Pulitzer.

The director Bryan Singer suggests that his film, set for release by Warner Brothers on June 30, makes an even more startling tribute to the Man of Steel's longtime love interest. When asked over a recent dinner here to describe the action of "Superman Returns," he spoke from Lois Lane's point of view: "This is a movie about what happens when old boyfriends come back into your life."

As the movie begins, Mr. Singer explained, Clark returns from a mysterious absence to discover that Lois has a fiancé and a child. This creates what may be the film's central quandary. "Even if you're the strongest man in the world," Mr. Singer said, "if the woman you love has found someone else that she's nearly married to that's not a bad guy, how do you figure out what your place is in that woman's life?"

He added, "I call it my first chick flick."

Making Lois (as played by Kate Bosworth) the linchpin of the Superman franchise may sound radical, but the screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris say that it's a natural next step in the hero's saga. "In the original comic Superman was the hypermasculine guy, but slowly the romantic aspect of the character became more prominent," Mr. Dougherty said in an interview here. "First he was a fighter, and then the lover got introduced. It wasn't one or the other, it was this mixture of both."

Mr. Dougherty said it was in Richard Donner's "Superman," released by Warner in 1978, that the character became "not just this alpha male, but he was sexualized, and romance really crystallized there." Later, the television series "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," which was broadcast on ABC in the mid-1990's, turned the romance into what Mr. Dougherty described as "full-on soap opera."

"And then they moved the soap opera to high school: 'Smallville' is absolutely the same thing, but younger," added Mr. Harris, referring to the WB series, which followed "Lois & Clark." "It opens with Clark Kent shirtless in a cornfield. Immediately you know they're going for the sexuality of Superman."

In "Superman Returns" the hero's sexuality is tempered by traditional values, the screenwriters said. The result is a kind of civilized masculinity, an acting challenge that falls to the previously little-known Brandon Routh. Although Lois Lane has a new boyfriend, Mr. Harris explained, she's still "the woman of Clark's dreams, and it's very difficult." He added: "He's put in the position where he's got to choose between being a good guy and being who he is, which would mean going beyond the borders of who he was. Which for the first time in a movie gives Superman something he can't overcome.

"It's like Kryptonite. It's like emotional Kryptonite."