Exclusive: Nicolas Cage Is In The Flash As Superman, Details Revealed
Nicolas Cage will appear as a variant Superman in The Flash.
Nicolas Cage will appear in the long-delayed Flash movie as Superman, a role that he was originally slated to play all the way back in the late 1990s. According to our trusted and proven sources, a recent (likely final) screen testing of The Flash included a scene in which Ezra Miller’s character catches a glimpse of the Renfield star as the Man of Steel, fighting a giant mechanical spider. This is a pretty clear reference to the canceled film Tim Burton Superman Lives, one of the most bewildering superhero projects of all time.
The Flash movie will star the controversial actor Ezra Miller as Barry Allen, the DC Universe’s version of the fastest man alive, crossing realities in order to save the life of his mother in the past and inadvertently causing changes in the timeline that result in Superman never arriving on Earth. Now, it seems that we will see at least one Superman in the movie, now played by Nicolas Cage rather than Henry Cavill or some unknown, younger actor.
It seems that while Barry Allen is running in the Speed Force (the interdimensional plane which allows the Scarlet Speedster to reach reality-hopping velocity), he sees multiple different realities, at least one of which includes a version of Superman played by Nicolas Cage. That also opens the possibility of other versions of Superman being seen, although it is hard to imagine any of them being more out of the blue than the star of Mandy.
In the late 1990s, director Tim Burton was recruited to make a new DC movie titled Superman Lives, based on the massive success of his Batman films with Michael Keaton. The project originated from noted comic book fan Kevin Smith, who presented the idea to producer Jon Peters (memorably portrayed by Bradley Cooper in Licorice Pizza); the notorious producer allegedly demanded that the character not fly or wear his iconic costume and, at some point, needed to fight a giant mechanical spider.
Nicolas Cage, also a noted comic book fan, signed on to the film, which went so far as to have screen tests of the actor in a version of the classic uniform (which Peters must have eventually relented on). While the movie never came to be, it has lived on in the anecdotes of Kevin Smith and, now, in a scene of The Flash.
Nicolas Cage did eventually get to portray Superman by voicing him in 2018’s Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, which must have been gratifying for a man so obsessed with the character that he named one of his children after him. In a fun bit of synchronicity, The Flash will also star Michael Keaton, returning to the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman for the first time in decades, so there will be a surprising amount of Tim Burton’s fingerprints on the film.
After numerous COVID-19 delays and much concern about the erratic and allegedly criminal behavior of Ezra Miller, The Flash is scheduled to premiere at CinemaCon on April 25 and in theaters on June 16.
