Kevin Smith Gushes About The Flash, Especially That One Sequence (You Know Which One)

Warning: This article discusses a major spoiler revealed in "The Flash."

After months of hype surrounding "The Flash" calling it one of the best superheroes ever made, the latest trek into the multiverse by the Scarlet Speedster failed to deliver at the box office, for a multitude of reasons. The major crossover comic book event featured Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck returning as Batman (Batmen?), Michael Shannon coming back as General Zod, and a new iteration of Supergirl (Sasha Calle). Yet it still wasn't enough to create enough buzz for a blockbuster-sized hit. Internally, there were already a few reasons to be a little worried, considering that "The Flash" had one of the most troubled shoots ever for a major Hollywood tentpole. 

Maybe that's why director Andy Muschietti felt the need to torpedo what's undoubtedly the biggest surprise cameo in "The Flash" to drum up a little more excitement. Admittedly, the only people who would actually get a charge out of this particular actor's sudden appearance in the DC Universe would have to be familiar with a failed attempt at a bizarro Superman movie that almost got made over twenty years ago. 

Lifelong comic book nerd and prolific screenwriter Kevin Smith has been telling sold-out Q&A audiences for years that he was hired to write the screenplay for "Superman Lives" for Warner Bros. in the late '90s. Despite Tim Burton signing on to direct, and over $30 million spent on casting and pre-production, the project was canned due to creative differences. Now that Smith has actually seen "The Flash," his dream casting for Superman has finally been given the big screen treatment, and he couldn't be more delighted. 

Again, If you don't already know who dons the cape in the What If? scenario, it's probably best to stay spoiler free until you see "The Flash." It is still in theaters, after all. 

In a mind-bending example of art imitating life imitating Kevin Smith, a glimpse into another version of Earth during the final act of "The Flash" shows Nicolas Cage as Superman, a truly full circle moment for the indie director responsible for the fanboy classics "Clerks" and "Mallrats." For Smith, who has hung his backwards baseball cap on turning mundane conversations about comic books into mainstream entertainment, Cage's reveal was a definitive moment. "I have spent the better part of 30 years of my career referencing the movies," Smith told Rolling Stone. "And now I've lived long enough where the movies are starting to reference me back." 

When Smith was still seen as a kind of indie maverick wunderkind in the mid-to-late '90s, Hollywood came knocking. Smith's accounts of the absurd notes he received about the script for "Superman Lives" by then-producer Jon Peters have received a certain mythic status over the years. His entire experience with the doomed project was immortalized in Smith's first long-form Q&A, "An Evening With Kevin Smith," where the director gained a reputation as a geeky raconteur. Understandably, Smith was blown away by the moment when Ezra Miller's Barry Allen peeks into another dimension showing Cage fighting a giant spider. He explained:

"I've been telling that story since 1997. And it's kind of become a part of comic-book pop culture. And so my Twitter has been blowing up for the last 24 hours and people want to know what I think. And what I think about it is, you know, in a weird way, even though I've been making films for 30 years, and I got my own career, I feel like, 'Oh, I finally made it.'"

As the story goes, Producer Jon Peters wanted Superman to fight a giant spider in "Superman Lives." There were also notes that the Kryptonian should also fight polar bears at the Fortress of Solitude and have actual guards defending his hidden headquarters. IT'S THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE! Why would Superman need guards, anyway? The punchline is that Peters finally got his wish after including a steampunk spider in the universally panned "Wild Wild West" starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline. 

The funny thing is, after Smith watched "The Flash" for the second time sitting with a crowd in his own New Jersey theater, Smodcastle Cinemas, he had to admit that Cage fighting a massive arachnid actually played. "It's mind-melting," he told Rolling Stone. "One of the first things I thought when I saw it at the premiere is, 'Goddammit, it would have worked.' As much as I used to make fun of Jon Peters, that looked badass."

The self-referential meta moment of Cage as Superman in "The Flash" has given Smith "some sense of weird closure" that's made the prospect of Cage in the role exciting all over again. After the disappointing box office returns, don't expect to see Cage ever appear as Superman again, a fact that makes the cameo even more special in retrospect. 

Smith still has a sliver of hope, however, saying: "I mean, s***, it would be one of the most interesting Superman flicks ever made. With all due respect to James Gunn and 'Superman Legacy,' like, you're talking about one of the greatest American actors alive. I still would back that play 100 percent."

The DC Comics issue "Batman/Superman: World's Finest #19" just revealed Nic Cage as Superman on a special variant cover, so maybe that should be the end of the road for whatever the eccentric actor's nouveau shamanic take would have been for Big Blue.