Nicolas Cage surprised fans by appearing as Superman in a cameo in The Flash, something that the actor said was not at all like what he thought it would be.
Speaking to Wired recently, Cage was asked about a previous statement he made on the cameo, where he called the use of artificial intelligence “inhumane.” Cage hinted that he and director Andy Muschietti had an agreement about his Superman cameo.
“That is the linchpin to it,” Cage said. “There’s an agreement and a mutual understanding and a contract that you’ve gone into knowing both sides and knowing full well what we’re getting into.”
The actor continued to say that whatever he did on set to film the cameo was not what ended up happening in the final cut of the film.
“I’m not saying they used AI on the Superman thing,” stated Cage. “Maybe they did. I don’t know. Maybe it was just CGI, but whatever it was, that’s not what I did on the set. As much as I love [director] Andy [Muschietti] and [sister and film producer] Barbara [Muschietti] — and I do think they’re great — it’s still not what I was told to do on set.”
Cage’s prior comments hint at a different Superman scene
Earlier this month, Cage also spoke to Yahoo Entertainment about the cameo, discussing how his scene — which saw him fighting and defeating a giant spider — was not what he did when he went in to film the cameo.
“When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that,” Cage said. “That was not what I did. I don’t think it was [created by] AI … 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. AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.”
As Cage told Yahoo!, however, what he actually shot was a lot less involved — and the entire fight sequence was added in post-production.
“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,” he said. “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.”
