When it comes to cinephile actors, there are few people I’d rather listen to than Nicolas Cage. Whether it’s talking New Hollywood with Paul Schrader for Interview Magazine or explaining in various interviews about how the icons of ’60s and ’70s horror inform his style of performance, listening to Cage talk about his craft is one of the highlights of any press junket. But as much as I could listen to Cage talk about movies all day long, there’s one thing I wish he would discuss more often: his love of Superman.
READ MORE: Brandon Routh Will Play Superman Once More in “Crisis on Infinite Earths”
Cage loves Superman. He was famously set to star in Tim Burton‘s canceled “Superman Lives” movie, owned a copy of the first issue of Action Comics that sold at auction for $2.1 million – and was featured one of the craziest true-crime Hollywood stories of the last two decades – and even named his son Kal-El. It seemed that Cage had finally gotten to live out his Superman dreams by voicing the character in “Teen Titans GO! to the Movies,“ but it turns out that Cage might’ve had one more chance to play his favorite superhero.
In a recent interview with IndieWire, CW superhero mega-producer Marc Guggenheim admitted that his team had reached out to Cage and asked him if he wanted to play an older version of the character in their upcoming ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ crossover event. Responding to a question about a seemingly joke tweet from October of this year, Guggenheim admitted that he was not joking. “You know, to be honest with you, because I never want to lie on these things, that was … yeah, I did,” the showrunner said. “We did reach out to Nic Cage.”
READ MORE: Nic Cage’s Hero in ‘Superman Lives’ Would’ve Dealt With Trauma
The highly-anticipated crossover, which has already brought back “Superman Returns” star Brandon Routh and “Smallville” star Tom Welling to play alternate versions of Superman, has leaned heavily into its meta-casting. Throwing Cage into the mix – especially if he adhered to the long-haired version of Superman that Burton had in mind – would’ve been the cherry on the top for comic book fans. And while Guggenheim does not explain why Cage chose not to appear in the series, it sounds like the tight shooting schedule and limited budget probably made this an impossibility. “The thing about movie stars is, they’re all shooting movies,” he said. “And unless those movies are shooting in Vancouver, we’re kind of out of luck.”
“Crisis on Infinite Earths” will kick off on “Supergirl” on December 8, 2019.