Before Nicolas Cage, Superman Lives' Producer Wanted This Gritty Actor For The Man Of Steel

Near the end of Andy Muschietti's notorious 2023 flop "The Flash," the titular character (Ezra Miller) has run so fast that he's punctured time itself and emerged in a strange parallel universe. Inside this miniature pocket dimension, the Flash is able to look into the swirling, psychedelic sky above him, and see into multiple other parallel worlds. He spots alternate versions of both Batman and Superman, including the versions portrayed by Adam West and George Reeves, as well as Christopher Reeve and Helen Slater as they appear in 1978's "Superman: The Movie" and 1984's "Supergirl." Most bafflingly, he even glimpses a Superman that looks very much like Nicolas Cage fighting a giant spider.

The Cage iteration of Superman is, of course, a giant Hollywood in-joke. In the mid-1990s, Tim Burton was hired to direct a gritty reboot of "Superman" titled "Superman Lives." The film was to be produced by Jon Peters, a Hollywood big shot who dreamed of seeing the Man of Steel battle a giant spider. A script for "Superman Lives" was written, Cage was cast, and even costumes had been designed. It's easy enough to find photos of Cage testing out the outfit online.

Most of the details about "Superman Lives" have been chronicled in either Jon Schnepp's 2015 documentary film "The Death of 'Superman Lives" and/or via extended anecdotes related by filmmaker Kevin Smith, who was once hired to write a script draft for the movie. Smith's stories have become legendary, and Peters' weird obsessions with giant spiders are now a matter of record. In 2023, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Smith to get his take on the "Superman Lives" homage in "The Flash," and he was delighted. He also revealed a few more Peters stories, including that Peters had wanted Sean Penn to play Superman. 

Smith's stories about Peters, by the way, are wild. Peters seemingly didn't like Superman and demanded there be no flying scenes. He also didn't like the Man of Steel's costume and wanted Superman to spend a lot of time out of it. He pictured a funny queer sidekick for Superman as well, along the lines of a character that Smith had written for his 1997 dramedy film "Chasing Amy." And, most importantly, Peters wanted a sequence where the Last Son of Krypton would fight a giant spider in a gladiatorial arena. 

Smith has related all of this in various lectures and on speaking tours. Speaking with THR, he revealed that Peters had also wanted Penn to play Superman based on the actor's then recent performance in Tim Robbins' heady 1995 death penalty drama, "Dead Man Walking." As Smith recalled:

"Jon Peters was like, 'I want Sean Penn to play Superman.' He had just seen 'Dead Man Walking,' and he goes, 'Look at his eyes in that movie. He's got the eyes of a violent animal, a caged killer.' [...] And I was like, 'Bro, it's Superman!' So, he's like, 'Who do you see?' I always loved Nic Cage, so I was like, 'Nic Cage loves Superman. He talks about knowing the comics real well. You guys should go after Nic Cage.' And so, when Tim Burton got hired, and suddenly they were going with Nic Cage, I was like, wow, I had an idea and somebody took it seriously."

Cage may be an odd choice to play Superman, an aw-shucks hayseed from Kansas, but he's certainly more energetic and heroic than Penn, who typically plays dramatically intense roles, heavies, or more human characters (see also: his work in "One Battle After Another").

As we all know now, of course, "Superman Lives" was scrapped and the film was never made. By the time the movie fell apart, Smith was off the project and other screenwriters had stepped in. Peters would never see his giant spider. Or would he? Part of Smith's "Superman Lives" stories include the detail that Peters went on to produce the 1999 sci-fi Western "Wild Wild West," and, yes, that film features a giant mechanical tarantula. Peters got his wish.

Whenever Smith described the giant spider battle in the past, he dismissed it, feeling that Peter's arachnophilia was a little too silly. But when Smith saw the CGI-animated sequence of a Cage-style Superman taking on a giant spider in "The Flash," he was actually impressed. Few people seem to genuinely like "The Flash" (it was a bomb, after all), but for Smith, the Cage sequence was personal. As Smith admitted to THR:

"One of the first things I thought when I saw it at the premiere is, 'God damn it, [the giant spider] would have worked.' As much as I used to make fun of Jon Peters, that looked badass. [...] You know what? He wasn't wrong. Like, it totally could have panned out."

Since the death of "Superman Lives," the Superman franchise has been rebooted three times, starting with 2006's "Superman Returns" (which is, admittedly, a sorta sequel to 1980's "Superman II"), once again with 2013's "Man of Steel," and, most recently, with 2025's "Superman." Each of these movies puts its own unique spin on the Superman character and has their share of fans. But, and this is noteworthy, not a single one of them features a scene where Superman takes on a giant spider.