This Superman is played by none other than Nic Cage — or, at least, an expressionless digital recreation of a younger Cage from the '90s — as the iteration of Superman he was meant to have played in Tim Burton's Superman Lives.
Cage made a surprise appearance as Superman in Warner Bros. ' “The Flash,” in which he battles a giant spider as the multiverse begins to collapse. The 2023 superhero film also sees the return of Keaton as Batman, with whom Burton directed in 1989's “Batman” and its 1992 sequel “Batman Returns.”
Nicolas Cage is opening up about his cameo in The Flash where he was featured donning the costume of Superman. As you may remember, Cage tested as the Man of Steel for what would've been a Tim Burton-directed feature that was ultimately scrapped.
Evolution of The Flash in Movies & TV Series (1979-2023)
Why is Nicolas Cage Superman in The Flash?
Despite being a CGI-enhanced cameo, Nicolas Cage was actually filmed on set in a Superman suit that was originally made for the unproduced film. The appearance of Nicolas Cage's Superman confirms the existence of a version of the character within the DC multiverse.
For all the faults of this year's The Flash movie, it did allow viewers to finally see Nicolas Cage as Superman — the iconic superhero role he was originally supposed to play in a '90s film that never got off the ground.
Henry Cavill's Superman cameo was cut from The Flash and replaced with a new ending because of the complications that otherwise would have been set up for the new DC Universe, as The Flash ending served as a soft reboot of the superhero movie universe.
Michael Keaton reprises his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman for the first time since 1992's Batman Returns in the new blockbuster The Flash. Luckily for DC Comics fans, Keaton isn't the only familiar name to make an appearance in the Ezra Miller-led film.
While The Flash doesn't feature Superman in any major capacity, it does include cameos by multiple takes on the character. The film's multiversal stakes end up involving four different incarnations of the Man of Steel, and only one of them hails from the DC Extended Universe.
David Corenswet, 29, will play the superhero in the latest version of the storied series. The casting comes after months of intrigue and auditions about who would star in “Superman: Legacy,” set to come out on July 11, 2025, and directed by James Gunn.
Once that movie was canceled by DC parent company Warner Bros. Discovery due to financial reasons, Keaton's Batman future got put in doubt, and after the announcement that the DCEU would be rebooted with James Gunn's new DC Universe, The Flash's ending was reshot, and Keaton's Bruce Wayne was then replaced by Clooney.
Superman: Legacy has chosen David Corenswet to step into the role previously held by Cavill. In this DC Universe iteration, Clark Kent will be portrayed as a younger character compared to the DCEU version.
The appearance of a long-haired Nic Cage as the Man of Steel is one of the biggest (and, to some, most confounding) surprises in The Flash simply because it's an homage to a DC movie that was never made. Cage was cast as Kal-El in director Tim Burton's Superman Lives, a 1990s project that Kevin Smith first scripted.
Ben Affleck's Batman makes a brief but important appearance in The Flash, showcasing his impressive crime-fighting skills and close friendship with other Justice League members.
Pattinson's Batman could have appeared in The Flash due to Barry's ability to explore the multiverse through his connection to the Speed Force. However, DC Studios has determined to keep certain projects such as The Batman and its upcoming sequels separate from the greater interconnected DCU.
Robert Pattinson is set to reprise his role as the Caped Crusader, and writer and director Matt Reeves will also be back to helm the movie and its trilogy and spin-offs - despite the other plans on the way from James Gunn.
Spider-Man star Tom Holland is being suggested as the next live-action version of The Flash in James Gunn's DC Universe. The future of The Flash in the DC Universe is uncertain after the end of Grant Gustin's show and Ezra Miller's movie flop.
Thus, the Henry Cavill scene was sliced out: Knowing they were resetting the DC universe under their own vision, Gunn and Safran saw that having Cavill and Gadot in the new ending was potentially promising something their plans were not going to deliver.
Highlights. The Flash received mixed reactions from fans and even Tim Burton expressed his displeasure due to the unregulated use of AI and not securing his approval for bringing back his DC characters.
While Superman is one of the most powerful heroes in the DC Universe, enhanced to godlike levels by the Sun's radiation, The Flash's physics-defying powers are capable of killing him not by playing on his famous vulnerability to magic or his weakness to Kryptonite, but simply by hitting him so hard, even his ...
