While DC fans have joked about how cool it would have been to see Nicolas Cage play a version of Superman in the Crisis on Infinite Earth crossover event series, it’s not going to happen. But that’s not due to lack of trying!
Arrowverse producer Marc Guggenheim actually reached out to Cage, who was cast by Tim Burton to play Superman in a film in the 90s that never got made. But, as you know there were several Superman costume designs tested for the movie.
During an interview with IndieWire, Guggenheim was asked if Cage was ever considered, and he was! He explained:
“You know, to be honest with you, because I never want to lie on these things, that was … yeah, I actually did … we did reach out to Nic Cage. We reached out to a lot of people, and there were people who didn’t want to do it. There were people who would only do it for amounts of money that we could not ever afford. And there were other people who really wanted to do it, but couldn’t for scheduling. That was the case with a lot of, I have to say, the movie stars that we reached out to. The thing about movie stars is, they’re all shooting movies. And unless those movies are shooting in Vancouver, we’re kind of out of luck. But I have to say that the sheer number of actors that we did end up getting exceeded my expectation.”
He didn’t explain why Cage passed, but it was probably for a number of reasons. But, wouldn’t it be crazy if Cage did make a surprise appearance at some point! I’d love to know all the other actors and actresses that they reached out to to be in this series.
It would have been pretty cool to see Nic Cage actually finally get to play Superman!
Crisis on Infinite Earths kicked off on Sunday, December 8th with Supergirl, that will be followed by Batwoman and The Flash on December 9th and 10th, respectively. The five-part crossover will conclude with Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow on January 14th, 2020.