Few movies in recent years have been a source of controversy quite like Andy Muschietti’s The Flash. From Ezra Miller’s escalating legal issues prior to the film’s release, to its disappointing box office performance when it hit theaters this summer, the title’s big picture legacy is in rough shape… and things are not improving now that director Tim Burton has shared his thoughts about the DC blockbuster featuring Nicolas Cage’s Superman in its third act.
Back in the 1990s, Burton was attached to direct Superman Lives starring Cage (a movie that never made it to production) and the filmmaker was recently asked by the British Film Institute about The Flash‘s homage to that notorious project. Despite the fact that the 2023 blockbuster actually got Nicolas Cage to shoot his cameo personally while wearing a suit created by the original costume designer (per an interview with Andy Muschietti on The Discourse podcast), Burton suggested that the blockbuster surprise is a negative result of artificial intelligence and misappropriation that has impacted his overall relationship with the studio system. Said the filmmaker,
[I]t 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.
Nicolas Cage’s Superman briefly appears in the third act of The Flash when the titular hero and his double from an alternate timeline nearly manage to destroy the multiverse. As Flash attempts to use time travel to fix his past mistakes, worlds begin to collide, and one of the worlds that we briefly get to look into is meant to be the world of Superman Lives. In contrast to Tim Burton’s thoughts, Cage has seen the The Flash cameo and called his Superman appearance “satisfying.”
As chronicled in the documentary The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened?, the would-be blockbuster got incredibly close to being made in the mid-1990s, but Warner Bros. decided to put the project on hold as it was gearing up for production and then shut the whole thing down. Looking back on the experience, Tim Burton says that he doesn’t have regrets, but his feelings about it are still strong because of the energy and emotional investment that he had put in. Said Burton,
No, I don’t have regrets. I will say this: when you work that long on a project and it doesn’t happen, it affects you for the rest of your life. Because you get passionate about things, and each thing is an unknown journey, and it wasn’t there yet. But it’s one of those experiences that never leaves you, a little bit.
If you haven’t seen the film or are curious about watching it again, The Flash is now available to stream if you have a Max subscription. For physical media collectors, the movie is also available to purchase on 4K UHD and Blu-ray.