Actor Nicolas Cage explained how they completely changed his cameo in the recent The Flash movie and shared his thoughts on AI.
Cage recently discussed the cameo in an interview with Kevin Polowy of Yahoo Entertainment saying, “Well, ok, first and foremost, I was on set. They did put a lot of time into building the suit.”
He then praised both director Andy Muschietti and his sister Barbara, “And by the way Andy, who I think is a terrific director. He’s a great guy and a great director. And I loved his two It movies. Great people, him and his sister.”
Next, Cage explained what he actually filmed, “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 — convey with my eyes the emotion. Ok. So that’s what I did. I was on set for maybe three hours.”
He then revealed how that contrasted with what was depicted in the film, “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 that was A.I. I know Tim [Burton] is upset about AI as I am. It was CGI. Ok so they de-aged me and I’m fighting a spider. I didn’t do any of that. So I don’t know what happened there, but I do feel that the movie gave that beautiful suit that Colleen Atwood designed a chance to be seen, and I was happy about that because she put a heck of a lot of thought into that suit. So did Tim.”
“But I get where Tim’s coming from,” he continued. “I know what he means. I would be very unhappy if people were taking his, like his beautiful Nightmare Before Christmas, all those drawings of Jack Skellington and having people just AIing them and appropriating them. I get it. 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.”
Cage then reiterated, “I don’t think it’s AI. 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,” he concluded.
Cage’s comments come in the wake of Batman director Tim Burton accusing the film of culturally appropriating his depiction of Michael Keaton’s Batman.
Burton told the British Film Institute, “It goes into another AI thing, and this is why I think I’m over it with the studio. They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it. Even though you’re a slave of Disney or Warner Brothers, they can do whatever they want. So in my latter years of life, I’m in quiet revolt against all this.”
What do you make of Cage’s comments about The Flash?
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