SPOILER alert:This article contains major spoilers for Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ “The Flash,” now playing in theaters.
“I finally got to see Nic Cage be Superman. It has been an absolute delight for me,” Kevin Smith recently told Rolling Stone about watching “The Flash.” The film and that Cage-as-Superman cameo near the end is a full circle moment for Smith, who was the screenwriter of the studio’s infamous “Superman Lives.”
After launching the Batman movie franchise for Warner Bros. to great success, director Tim Burton turned his attention toward Superman in 1998 with the development of “Superman Lives.” Smith penned the script, which focused on Superman’s fight against Doomsday. Despite spending over $30 million on the film’s casting and pre-production, Warner Bros. pulled the plug on “Superman Lives” due to creative differences.
One of the big sources of contention during the development of “Superman Lives” was producer Jon Peters’ insistence that Superman fight a giant spider. Smith was forced to add the spider to his script as one of three Peters-mandated requests (the producer also wanted Superman to not fly in the film and to wear a black suit), although he’s now finally open to the idea after seeing “The Flash.” Nicolas Cage pops up in the film during a scene in which the multiverse is ripped open and Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen takes a peek into different worlds. Barry spots one world in which Cage is Superman and battles a giant spider in a nod to the failed “Superman Lives.”
“It’s mind-melting,” Smith told Rolling Stone about the Cage cameo scene. “One of the first things I thought when I saw it at the premiere is, ‘Goddammit, [the giant spider] would have worked.’ As much as I used to make fun of Jon Peters, that looked badass.”
When asked if he likes the giant spider now, Smith answered: “You know what? He wasn’t wrong. Like, it totally could have panned out.”
Cage was Smith’s first choice to play Superman in “Superman Lives.” Peters preferred Sean Penn.
“He had just seen ‘Dead Man Walking,’ and he goes, ‘Look at [Sean Penn’s] eyes in that movie. He’s got the eyes of a violent animal, a caged killer,'” Smith said. “And I was like, ‘Bro, it’s Superman!’ So he’s like, ‘Who do you see?’ I always loved Nic Cage, so I was like, ‘Nic Cage loves Superman. He talks about knowing the comics real well. You guys should go after Nic Cage.’ And so when Tim Burton got hired, and suddenly they were going with Nic Cage, I was like, wow, I had an idea and somebody took it seriously. So there’s some sense of weird closure to everything in seeing that moment in ‘The Flash.'”
Smith is so jazzed about seeing Cage pop up in “The Flash” that he is urging Warner Bros. to consider once again making a Cage-starring Superman movie.
“If I’m Warner Bros., I’m going, like, ‘Fuck it. There’s a multiverse, man. Let’s give Nic Cage a Superman movie,'” he said. “You don’t have to be the only Superman, but why not? We’ve got multiple Batmans. I mean, shit, it would be one of the most interesting Superman flicks ever made. With all due respect to James Gunn and ‘Superman Legacy,’ like, you’re talking about one of the greatest American actors alive. I still would back that play 100 percent.”
“The Flash” is now playing in theaters nationwide.
