Nicolas Cage doesn't need to be in the MCU, regrets not getting to do emo Superman with Tim Burton

Nicolas Cage, self-professed comic book nerd, isn't sweating a phone call from Kevin Feige welcoming him to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, ah, he's never quite gotten over bringing his own twist to the Man of Steel with Tim Burton at the helm.

Cage was at the Miami Film Festival accepting Variety's Legend & Groundbreaker Award when he opened up about his feelings about the state of superhero cinema today.

"I've gotta be nice about Marvel movies, because I named myself after a Stan Lee character named Luke Cage," the Renfield star said. "What am I going to do, put Marvel movies down? Stan Lee is my surrealistic father. He named me."

Cage admitted that he understood the "frustration" with superhero movies but conceded that "there's plenty of room for everybody." But when asked if he wanted to be in the MCU, the actor's response was typically Cageian: "I don't need to be in the MCU, I'm Nic Cage."

everett Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider

Cage was, infamously, in an early iteration of Marvel's big screen hero attempts with 2007's Ghost Rider. Fellow beloved quixotic character actor Keanu Reeves recently expressed interest in taking over the role in the MCU, at which point Kevin Feige's head turned into a flaming skull out of pure excitement.

While Cage may be good on Marvel movies, his kryptonite is the unmade Tim Burton-directed Superman Lives. The movie was in the works in the '90s — there's a popular video of Cage in costume, bulging prosthetic muscles and all — but never came to fruition, and Cage is not exactly sure why.

Cage said Warner Bros. originally wanted Die Hard 2 director Renny Harlin but Cage insisted on Burton. "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," Cage said. "I loved what he did with Michael [Keaton] and Batman, and I was a big fan."

Cage noted how Burton's 1996 Mars Attacks!, which he loves, was a major financial failure for the studio, and they were afraid of losing more money with an off-kilter take on Superman.

"It was more of a 1980s Superman with like, the samurai black long hair," Cage explained. "I thought it was gonna be a really different, sort of emo Superman, but we never got there."

The Oscar-winner believes that "movies that are really weird, that challenge and break ground" also "piss a lot of people off" and that Warner Bros. 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," Cage said. "I don't mean to be cryptic Cage, but you never know!"

Burton's also spoken of the would-be emo Superman, explaining to Howard Stern in 1999 that they hadn't settled on a script when pre-production began. Which isn't really a problem, Burton added, but the studio's micromanaging was.

"We were looking at the suit and the studio and the producer were afraid of the red underwear. They wanted to have him in like Michael Jordan shorts," Burton told Stern, adding that the studio wanted to put the Man of Steel in corduroy.

So maybe that was the nail in the Superman Lives coffin. Better cold feet than a corduroy cape.

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