The Flash was a highly divisive movie on several levels, but the most talked about (and lambasted) aspect of the Scarlet Speedster's first solo outing had to be the "Chrono-Bowl" CGI cameos.
When the younger Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) begins to repeatedly rest the timeline in an attempt to save Batman and Supergirl, the Multiverse begins the break apart, and we get a glimpse into various other realities, one of which features Nicolas Cage as Superman doing battle with giant robot spider.
Cage, who was cast as the Man of Steel in Tim Burton's Superman Lives back in the day, has previously revealed that he was on set to film the scene, even though his character - along with the rest of the heroes and villains that appeared - looked like a completely CG creation.
During a new interview with Yahoo!, Cage once again made it clear that he did physically shoot something for the movie, but the original idea for his role was very different to what ended up on screen.
“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.”
We did get a brief close-up of Cage's Superman as he surveyed the damage (how much emotion registered in his eyes is up for debate), but then it was giant spider time!
“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]," he went on. "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.”
What did you make of Cage's Superman scene in The Flash? Drop us a comment down below.
"Directed by Andy Muschietti, The Flash features Barry Allen traveling back in time in order to change events of the past. But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to help. That is, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian…albeit not the one he’s looking for.
Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?"
The Flash is produced by Barbara Muschietti and Michael Disco, with a screenplay by Christina Hodson, and a screen story by John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein and Joby Harold, based on characters from DC. Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Double Dream/a Disco Factory production of an Andy Muschietti film.