One of the highlights of The Flash is seeing Nic Cage finally fulfill his dream of playing Superman, but fans are now learning that director Andy Muschietti went a little beyond what the actor originally signed up for. In a new interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Cage, 59, revealed that while he did show up in person to film his cameo scenes for Warner Bros. and DC (yes, there was more involved than just a load of CG), he was surprised at seeing himself battling a giant spider in the final version of the film, as that wasn’t part of the original plan. According to Cage, the scene was simply supposed to show him standing silently and watching the universe blow up—a great test for his acting skills, apparently—but that ended up getting largely replaced by an action scene that involved alien insects and eye lasers, inspired by producer Jon Peters’ ideas (per Kevin Smith) for what could have been Tim Burton’s Superman Lives. Cage goes on to say that AI, at least to his knowledge, wasn’t involved in the creation of the scene, which is great for him, as both he and Burton consider artificial intelligence to be “inhumane.”
“They did put a lot of time into building the suit … and I think [Andy] 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,” Cage said.
“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 [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.”