Nicolas Cage Says Warner Bros. Were "Scared" To Make Tim Burton's SUPERMAN LIVES
The Ghost Rider and Kick-Ass star looks back on nearly playing the Man of Steel in Tim Burton's zany looking Superman Lives, and goes on to say that while he no longer reads comics "as a 49-year-old man", the genre does still have a very special place in his heart. Check it out!
In an interview with Metro about the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Croods, Nicolas Cage was asked whether starring in animated movies like that has anything to do with his well-known love of comics books. As it turns out, he's no longer the fanboy you may have previously been led to believe! "Look, the truth is I’m not obsessed with comics," the Kick-Ass star revealed. "I don’t read comics as a 49-year-old man. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but I have other interests that are more in tune with where I’m at right now. But I’m loyal and I will never forget the impressions that comics gave me as a child. They are like primitive cartoons and those characters became like a modern mythology that’s touched the world. So animated movies are like cousins to comics."
As you may already know, Cage was at one point attached to star in Tim Burton's Superman Lives, and it would have retold the famous "Death of Superman" arc, with Brainiac and Doomsday set to be the villains. Asked how close he came to actually making the rather odd looking film with the director, Cage said: "Very close. Look, I’m not going to be one of these guys that’s going to be, like, lamenting things. But is Tim Burton one of my favourite directors? Yes. Did I see some of the drawings of where he wanted to go? Yes. And I will tell you, they were fantastic and it would have been a mind-blowing experience. Did I have a concept of how to play the character? Yes, and I can tell you it would have been gutsy. So maybe Warner Brothers got scared because they had two artists that weren’t afraid to take chances." Scared or one of the most sensible choices ever?