Nicolas Cage says his cameo as an alternate Superman in 'The Flash' was nothing like what he filmed.
The 59-year-old actor can understand why Tim Burton was upset over his work being "misappropriated", after a lot of CGI was used in a multiverse sequence in the 2023 movie, which also saw Michael Keaton reprise his role as Batman.
The iconic filmmaker was just weeks away from working on 'Superman Lives' in 1998 when the plug got pulled after two years of pre-production work.
And Burton drew a negative comparison between seeing Cage and Keaton in 'The Flash' - which stars Ezra Miller in the titular role - with the controversial use of artificial intelligence in filmmaking.
And although Cage doesn't believe AI was used in the Andrés Muschietti-helmed film, he doesn't recognise the scene.
Speaking to Yahoo! Entertainment, he said: "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.”
He continued: “But I don’t think it [was] AI [in The Flash]. 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.”
The 'Renfield' actor did, however, heap praise on the director and the costume department for the hours they spent on his Superman suit.
Cage added: “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.”