Nicolas Cage WAS on set for Superman cameo in The Flash

Nicolas Cage has put those The Flash rumours to bed by revealing he WAS on the set to film part of his cameo as Superman.

In the 1990s, Kevin Smith penned a script for Superman Lives and pitched the idea to Warner Bros. executive Jon Peters, whose demands for the movie became infamous.

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Peters' conditions included that he did not want Superman to fly and that Superman would fight a giant spider in the third act.

Smith agreed to the terms as it was the only way the movie was going to get made. Eventually, Tim Burton signed on to direct, with Cage cast as Clark Kent / Superman. The Academy Award winner even screen-tested for the role in Superman's famous blue and red suit.

In 1998, the project was postponed and eventually scrapped, with Smith and Burton both clashing with Peters.

Over 20 years later, Cage would appear as Superman on-screen in a cameo appearance in The Flash, though AI was used instead of Cage featuring himself.

Burton was furious that his work had effectively been bastardised without his permission, but Cage is a bit softer on the outcome - even if he had no idea about the giant spider fight.

“First and foremost, I was on set,” Cage told Yahoo.

“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.

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The Flash (2023)

Barry Allen works for the police as a scientist in a laboratory. One day, however, an accident happens to him. Allen survives the accident, and as a result he now has superpowers. These powers allow him to generate lightning bolts and move super fast. However, that attracts the attention of some formidable enemies.

Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Stars: Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle and Michael Keaton

“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 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. 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.”

The Flash received mixed to negative reviews and was a box office bomb for DC Studios.