Photo:TDOSLWH
TDOSLWH
Warning: Spoilers forThe Flashfollow…
The original Superman of the big screen, Christopher Reeve, appears along with Helen Slater as Supergirl, Adam West as Batman and George Reeves also as Superman.
But the reason behind Cage’s cameo amid these blasts from cinematic past may not be clear. After all, the Oscar winner’s turn as the Man of Steel — in director Tim Burton’s follow-up toBatmanandBatman Returns— never made it beyond pre-production.
Superman Lives, as the 1998 unproduced film would have been called, sought to reboot Superman onscreen much as Burton and Michael Keaton did with Batman.
The FlashdirectorAndy MuschiettitoldEsquire Middle Eastthat Cage was “absolutely wonderful” to work with. “He is a massive Superman fan. A comic book fanatic… Although the role was a cameo, he dove into it.”
Ron Livingston, Ben Affleck, Andrés Muschietti, Director, Ezra Miller, Kiersey Clemons, Barbara Muschietti, Maribel Verdú and Sasha Calle at the world premiere of The Flash.Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock
Eric Charbonneau/Shutterstock
Cage’s enthusiasm for comic books has never been in doubt; theFace/Offactor namedone of his sonsKal-El after Superman’s birth name from his home planet Krypton.
Of the ill-fatedSuperman Lives, Cage toldVarietyin March that “it was more of a 1980s Superman with, like, the samurai black long hair. I thought it was gonna be a really different, sort of emo Superman, but we never got there.
“They wanted [director] Renny Harlin to do the movie,” he continued. “But I thought if I’m going to do this, it’s such a bullseye to hit … I said, this has to be Tim Burton. I called Tim and said, ‘Would you do this?’ Tim didn’t cast me, I cast Tim, and Tim said yes. I loved what he did with Michael [Keaton] and Batman, and I was a big fan.”
Cage added that his Superman never came to fruition ultimately because Burton’s 1996 flickMars Attackswasn’t enough of a box office hit.
“They were scared at the studio because ofMars Attacks. Warner Bros. had lost a lot of money on the movie. These movies that are really weird, that challenge and break ground, they piss a lot of people off. I think they got cold feet.”
It didn’t help that a leaked photo of Cage in an unfinished version of Superman’s iconic red and blue costume further convinced fans that the actor, fresh off his Academy Award win for 1995’sLeaving Las Vegas, didn’t fit the role.
“They couldn’t give a shape to it in their minds,” Holly Payne, producer of the 2015 tell-all documentaryThe Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, toldFast Company’sCo.CREATE. “And no one had seen the art, except for one horrible Polaroid of Nicolas Cage, exhausted, taken during a costume test.”
Burton has also lamented the cancellation ofSuperman Lives,telling Howard Sternin a 2019 interview “that was the one character that was never really portrayed with any depth… I thought for the first time, with Nic, you could see a guy who you could see the change [from Clark Kent to Superman].”
“For the earliest part of my career, I made lots of nods to pop culture," he toldComicBook.com. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me at the point in my life whenever pop culture nods back at me. For all the times I ever told thatSuperman Livesstory, it delighted me no end to hear it was echoed inThe Flash.”
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As for the other cinematic superhero universe, Cage made his feelings clear in the sameVarietyinterview: “I don’t need to be in the MCU, I’m Nic Cage.”
“I’ve gotta be nice about Marvel movies because I named myself after a Stan Lee character named Luke Cage,” he said. “What am I going to do, put Marvel movies down? Stan Lee is my surrealistic father. He named me.”
The Flashis in theaters now.
source: people.com
