Former Superman actor Nicolas Cage gives his impression of Justice League

Long before Justice League, Superman had a long on-screen history going as far back as the 1950s. He’s been portrayed by dozens of actors in live action and animated forms, one actor who had been cast to portray the iconic hero in a Tim Burton directed film in the 1990s is Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage. You may think to yourself “Wait, I don’t remember seeing Nic Cage as Superman.” and that’s because the film was never made.

There’s a long, lengthy story behind that but he came very close to playing Superman on the silver screen, even going as far as to don a costume with long flowing locks of black hair. We won’t get into it here but if you’re interested in the strange and fascinating story behind the film which was titled Superman Lives you can check out the documentary “The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?”.

The self proclaimed comic fan was at the film festival, Sundance, this past weekend and Variety got to sit down and talk to him. In the interview, the topic of DC Comics’ critically panned 2017 superhero ensemble film Justice League. Cage was asked whether he had seen the film and what he thought of it.

“I did,” Cage said when speaking to Variety at Sundance. “I thought it was fun. That’s all I’m going to say.”

Now perhaps Cage just wanted to discuss other things and we’re just reading into it but it sounds like he may just be trying to be kind. In 2016, Cage was asked about the year in superhero films and he responded pretty enthusiastically in comparison.

“I thought Civil War was excellent. I thought Batman v Superman was excellent,” Cage told Collider. “I thought Will Smith was great in Suicide Squad. I think that the genre is in good shape.”

The star later went on to star in two Marvel films as Johnny Blaze, AKA Ghost Rider, after the Superman project fell through. Variety went on to ask if he still saw himself able to play the role he responded pretty bluntly.

“No, not at all,” Cage said.

That doesn’t mean he’s completely done with playing superhero roles but he’d only do it if he felt he had something worthwhile to offer.

“The comic book thing with me is a little blown out of proportion with the Internet. I grew up reading them and I always knew they would be — like once technology would be there, they would be the front of entertainment. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, that I’m sitting around reading comic books all day. I’ve kind of moved on. I don’t want to sound pompous and tell you what I read. My father was a professor of literature and he exposed me to Aldous Huxley, Hermann Hesse, and it goes on and on. So I like fiction, I like novels. But to answer your question, I would if I felt I could do something with the part.”

You can view the small excerpt from Variety’s video interview below.

Justice League will release on Blu-ray and DVD on March 13th, 2018.