Nicolas Cage Says He Doesn’t Need The MCU Because, In His Words, ‘I’m Nic Cage’

Nicolas Cage once almost played Superman. Back in the late aughts and early teens — before comic book movies all but took over the multiplexes — he played the anti-heroic superhero Ghost Rider. And yet he’s managed to resist the current trend, in which almost every actor in Hollywood at least plays a villain or a sidekick in the MCU or the DCEU, if not one of the main stars. He ain’t changing his mind anytime soon.

“I’ve gotta be nice about Marvel movies, because I named myself after a Stan Lee character named Luke Cage. What am I going to do, put Marvel movies down Stan Lee is my surrealistic father. He named me,” he said while receiving an award at the Miami Film Festival over the weekend, as per Variety. “I understand what the frustration is. I get it. But I think there’s plenty of room for everybody. I’m seeing movies like Tár. I’m seeing all kinds of artistic and independently driven movies. I think there’s plenty of room for everybody.”

But would he still do Marvel Apparently not. When asked, he replied, “I don’t need to be in the MCU, I’m Nic Cage.”

He sure is. Cage did regret that his stint as Supes never came to be:

“They wanted Renny Harlin to do the movie. I sat down with Renny. I was doing another picture, he came to the trailer and we talked. I liked Renny… but I thought if I’m going to do this, it’s such a bullseye to hit,” Cage explained. “I said, this has to be Tim Burton. I called Tim and said, ‘Would you do this’ Tim didn’t cast me, I cast Tim, and Tim said yes. I loved what he did with Michael [Keaton] and Batman, and I was a big fan.”

He continued, “I love ‘Mars Attacks.’ I thought ‘Mars Attacks’ was just a fantastic, groundbreaking movie. He’s a groundbreaker! But they were scared at the studio because of ‘Mars Attacks.’ Warner Brothers had lost a lot of money on the movie. These movies that are really weird, that challenge and break ground, they piss a lot of people off. I think they got cold feet. They’d spent a lot of money already building the sets and the costume and what have you. But you never know. I don’t mean to be cryptic Cage, but you never know!”

The actor really enjoyed the character they were building, he explained: “It was more of a 1980s Superman with like, the samurai black long hair. I thought it was gonna be a really different, sort of emo Superman, but we never got there.”

But hey, at least he still has time to do movies like Pig.