Nicolas Cage’s cameo as Superman in 2023’s The Flash was majorly changed in postproduction.
Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment, Cage confirmed he was on the set of DC’s The Flash to film a brief cameo as the Man of Steel; however, he was only in the superhero suit for “maybe an hour” and he didn’t know he would be fighting a giant spider until he was watching the movie for the first time.
“They did put a lot of time into building the suit…and I think [Andy Muschietti] is a terrific director, he is a great guy and a great director, and I loved his two It movies…What I was supposed to do was literally just be standing in an alternate dimension, if you will, and witnessing the destruction of the universe. Kal-El was bearing witness [to] the end of a universe, and you can imagine with that short amount of time that I had, what that would mean in terms of what I can convey. I had no dialogue [so had to] convey with my eyes the emotion. So that’s what I did. I was on set for maybe three hours.”
Nicolas Cage wasn’t fighting a giant spider when he was on set for The Flash
Cage continued, “When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that. That was not what I did. I don’t think it was [created by] AI. I know Tim [Burton] is upset about AI, as I am. It was CGI, OK, so that they could de-age me, and I’m fighting a spider. I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there…But I get where Tim’s coming from. I know what he means. I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art…and appropriating them. I get it. I mean, I’m with him in that regard. AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.
“But I don’t think it [was] AI [in The Flash]. I just think that they did something with it, and again, it’s out of my control. I literally went to shoot a scene for maybe an hour in the suit, looking at the destruction of a universe and trying to convey the feelings of loss and sadness and terror in my eyes. That’s all I did.”
Cage was originally cast as Kal-El in Superman Lives, a movie that was going to be directed by Burton in the late 1990s but was put on hold and then abandoned by Warner Bros. in April 1998. Cage also voiced the character of Clark Kent in 2018’s Teen Titans Go! To the Movies.
