Nicolas Cage Shoots Down Hopes of His Superman Ever Returning After The Flash Cameo

Nicolas Cage, who has suggested he wasn’t thrilled with how his The Flash cameo went, says he is done playing Superman. The actor says in a new interview that he doesn’t see himself returning to the role for any future movies, in spite of his well-documented love for comics and Superman. The actor told Deadline this week that he wasn’t upset by what happened with The Flash, and he was happy to see the incredible Superman costume designed by Colleen Atwood appear onscreen…but that he doesn’t see himself returning to the part again.

“I don’t think that’s coming back in any way,” Cage said. “And listen, I wasn’t angry about the situation. I really wasn’t. I was just confused. I was mystified by what happened [in the first place], because [Tim Burton], one of the greatest directors in the world, had wanted to make the movie and already had kind of defined the way to make the best comic book based storyline with the Batman franchise with Michael Keaton. So I couldn’t understand why that studio, who had such success with that fantastic, brilliant director, would pull the plug.”  

In The Flash, when Barry Allen (Ezra MIller) is moving through the multiverse, the audience gets glimpses of a number of alternate realities. In one of those realities, Nicolas Cage appears as Superman, doing battle with a giant, metal spider. Fans of Smith’s likely recognize the reference here; in his stand-up special An Evening With Kevin Smith, the filmmaker revealed that a highly-placed producer at Warner Bros. had an irrational obsession with a scene just like this, and insisted Smith write one into the script for Superman Lives, a project he wrote in the 1990s, and that Cage would have starred in.

Smith was tickled by the inside joke, but Cage has since gone on to say it was done digitally, and that while he was there on set, there was no indication of a robot spider anywhere.

Here’s the movie’s synopsis:

The Flash raced into theaters on June 16th, reshaping the DC Multiverse with the help of familiar faces and brand-new heroes. Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) ventures to the past to change history, resulting in massive repercussions for the future. Forced to team up with another version of Barry, the mysterious Kryptonian known as Supergirl (Sasha Calle), and the iconic Batman (Michael Keaton), the Scarlet Speedster is forced to reckon with his mistakes and save a doomed reality. The Flash is directed by Andy Muschietti, written by Christina Hodson from a story by Joby Harold, and produced by Barbara Muschietti.