Speaker 1: Nick Cage is in a Superman costume. It's not for Halloween,
Speaker 1: and it's not just because he feels like it. It's
Speaker 1: because in Cage is set to star in Superman Lives,
Speaker 1: the first new live action Superman movie in ten years.
Speaker 1: It's taken Warner Brothers, which owns DC Comics that long,
Speaker 1: to find the right pairing of star and director to
Speaker 1: bring one of their most valuable assets back to the screen.
Speaker 1: Cage will star as the Man of Steel. Tim Burton,
Speaker 1: who ushered in the modern era of comic book movies
Speaker 1: in with Batman, will direct their Superman will be a
Speaker 1: bit of an outcast, an alien from another planet who
Speaker 1: doesn't quite fit in here, and everyone believes Cage is
Speaker 1: perfect for the role. Cage looks great in the It's
Speaker 1: crafted from rubber, like Michael Keaton's Batman costume, to give
Speaker 1: more muscle definition to his already trim physique. His hair
Speaker 1: is long and dyed black, reminiscent of Superman's mullet when
Speaker 1: he came back from the dead in the comics. Back
Speaker 1: In one version of the suit, led lights make it
Speaker 1: light up like a screen at a rave. Cage looks
Speaker 1: in the mirror and seems satisfied with what he sees.
Speaker 1: He's always had an affinity for Superman, for someone who
Speaker 1: tried to conduct himself with dignity and tried to act
Speaker 1: with a moral compass. He just spent a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars on Action Comics number one, and it's
Speaker 1: easy to think he did it in part to feel
Speaker 1: a connection with the mythology. Cage has often spoken about
Speaker 1: having talisman, physical objects that can help him get a
Speaker 1: better feel for a role. What could get him in
Speaker 1: tune with playing Superman more than possessing the cultural artifact
Speaker 1: of where it all began. In fact, he bought two copies,
Speaker 1: the one in terrific condition that was stolen and a
Speaker 1: second one that wasn't quite as well preserved. Some collectors
Speaker 1: call this an under copy. It's sort of like settling
Speaker 1: for the comic you want in an average condition until
Speaker 1: the holy Grail comes along. The under copy is the
Speaker 1: one Cage sold off in his massive public auction in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. Here's William Hughes, who brokered the sale.
Speaker 1: I thought that one was a restored copy, so it
Speaker 1: might have just been one that he had all along.
Speaker 1: And then he upgraded when he had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: get the nice, high grade copy. That's a frequent occurrence
Speaker 1: in the hobby where you know the higher end buyers,
Speaker 1: they have a lasser copy and in the upgrade when
Speaker 1: the opportunity arises. But there are bumpy times ahead. For
Speaker 1: one thing, Cages stand in. A man named Marco Kyus
Speaker 1: didn't have as much luck donning the iconic suit as
Speaker 1: Cage did. I went in for a costume fitting. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at that point I had gained a lot of weight,
Speaker 1: probably twenty five pounds heavier than Nick, and I was
Speaker 1: kind of bloated looking and said, I think during face
Speaker 1: off around that time, and I went in for a
Speaker 1: fitting and the costume were just staring at me and said,
Speaker 1: are you like Alec Baldwin's standing that's Marco. I said no,
Speaker 1: I'm in a cage is stand it. And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: how did you get that job? It's like you're really overweight.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I know at the time you could
Speaker 1: say these things, and I said, yeah, I know, I've
Speaker 1: I've been getting a lot of weight on the film set.
Speaker 1: That's when the costume designer had to get creative. The
Speaker 1: funny part was they had to roll it up. The
Speaker 1: rubber had to be rolled up over my fat and
Speaker 1: then zip me up, so everything was kind of like
Speaker 1: squished inside. It was so embarrassing. I was so out
Speaker 1: of shape, and I was so unlikely to be Superman standing.
Speaker 1: It would be a joke. It would be It would
Speaker 1: be a farce. Farce is not a bad way to
Speaker 1: describe Cage's Superman a movie project. The movie would soon
Speaker 1: fall by the wayside, and Cage's best version of that comic,
Speaker 1: which was procured to celebrate and fuel that role, would
Speaker 1: be stolen. But you know all that. What you may
Speaker 1: not know is this wouldn't be the only time Nicholas
Speaker 1: Cage and Superman would be the subjects of a single
Speaker 1: feature film. But instead of Cage playing Superman, someone would
Speaker 1: be playing Cage, several actors actually, including a woman, and
Speaker 1: the movie wouldn't be about Superman, but about the theft
Speaker 1: of Cage's copy of Action Number One, a holy fictional,
Speaker 1: very meta version of the story that was written by
Speaker 1: two superstar Hollywood writers, filmed, edited, and never released. No
Speaker 1: one's ever seen it. Even it's a rector couldn't get
Speaker 1: a copy. The only thing more mysterious than the fate
Speaker 1: of Cages Action number one is the fate of the
Speaker 1: movie about Cages Action number one. Like that famous comic,
Speaker 1: it disappeared without a trace. Today we're going to find
Speaker 1: out why. For I Heart Radio, this is Stealing Superman.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Danis Schwartz, and this is episode five
Speaker 1: now a major motion picture. The war that comes to
Speaker 1: me is that it was a trip, you know, to
Speaker 1: play someone named Nick Cage and two version as of
Speaker 1: someone named Nick Cage. It was terrifying. I mean I
Speaker 1: had to say that I was actually very nervous to
Speaker 1: go towards this. But I believe that if you're a something,
Speaker 1: if as long as doesn't hurt you or anybody else,
Speaker 1: you should go towards it and you might learn something.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Speaker 1: It's a film that was released earlier this year and
Speaker 1: started Nicolas Cage. As Nicolas Cage, the movie version of
Speaker 1: Cage is at a crossroads in his career, much like
Speaker 1: the real Cage, who fell off the Hollywood A list
Speaker 1: about a decade ago and has been working steadily in
Speaker 1: lower budget a fair The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which,
Speaker 1: as fans of the whole brevity thing will call Massive Talent,
Speaker 1: sees a fictionalized version of Cage having that same experience.
Speaker 1: He's having an existential crisis and agrees to perform for
Speaker 1: a drug dealer at the dealer's birthday party. Chaos ensues,
Speaker 1: and so does a lot of tongue in cheek commentary
Speaker 1: on Cage's career. He not only plays himself, but versions
Speaker 1: of him, all at different times in his life. Face
Speaker 1: Off Eric Cage, Wild at Heart Eric Cage. The movie
Speaker 1: allowed Cage to seize control of his story back from
Speaker 1: snarky Internet commenters who were very preoccupied with his grandiose
Speaker 1: acting choices and some of his b movie roles. Critics
Speaker 1: liked Massive Talent. It was quote smart, funny, and wildly creative,
Speaker 1: according to one review, but it wasn't the first time
Speaker 1: Cage had been approached to play himself in a movie.
Speaker 1: The initial pitch was, we knew this thing had happened
Speaker 1: where this copy of Action Comments number one went missing
Speaker 1: from Cage's house, and like that was the starting premise,
Speaker 1: and then the approach to it was like, well, what
Speaker 1: if it was this sort of ocean's eleven style heist
Speaker 1: by these sort of like friends who an't hanging around
Speaker 1: a comic book shop where they find out he's got it,
Speaker 1: and they consider themselves Oceans eleven and they're going to
Speaker 1: break in and they're gonna get it and sell it
Speaker 1: and get rich off of it, and they're all at
Speaker 1: the that to Alex Fernie. Alex is a director primarily
Speaker 1: of television comedies like Key and Peel and comedy Bang Bang.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, a script landed on his desk.
Speaker 1: It was titled Action Number One, and it was another
Speaker 1: meta Cage story, but this one was about one very
Speaker 1: specific incident in Cage's life, the theft of that rare
Speaker 1: comic from his home, and then the approach to Cage
Speaker 1: was obviously a very heightened version of him, where he
Speaker 1: becomes this sort of like bad guy antagonist who's trying
Speaker 1: to track them down and hires a hitman to kill
Speaker 1: them because they stole his most beloved belonging. So it
Speaker 1: really takes that first actual thing to happen, which memory
Speaker 1: serves it was by large. He had a party and
Speaker 1: the next day it was just gone, but he didn't
Speaker 1: know how long it had been missing him. And turned
Speaker 1: it into this sort of pisty thing where he's the
Speaker 1: anti Garcia from Motions eleven. The script was written by
Speaker 1: Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Grant, a screenwriting team responsible
Speaker 1: for some major hits like The Night at the Museum
Speaker 1: franchise with Ben Stiller. You've probably seen them too. In
Speaker 1: addition to being co creators with Carrie Kenny Silver, Lennon
Speaker 1: Grant were actors on Reno nine, one, the cult hit
Speaker 1: on Comedy Central about annept Nevada Cops. Lennon played Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Jim Dangle, Grant was Deputy Travis Jr. When the two
Speaker 1: heard about Cage's comic book heist, their story Antenna went
Speaker 1: off a famous actor suffering an art theft. Only it
Speaker 1: was a rare comic and not just any actor, but
Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage, avowed Superman fan and someone once slated to
Speaker 1: play him. That was a movie premise, so Lennon and
Speaker 1: Grant concocted a fictionalized version of the story. They didn't
Speaker 1: need to adhere to facts. Instead, they tell you who
Speaker 1: the thieves are right out the game. The script is
Speaker 1: from their point of view. It's a group of comic
Speaker 1: book collectors who get wind of Cagees priceless comic collection
Speaker 1: and the easy access to Action number one. Oh yeah
Speaker 1: yeah the second Ben and Tom mentioned me as like,
Speaker 1: I absolutely know that story because it is so nuts,
Speaker 1: and I feel like around that same time, when people
Speaker 1: were like passing around the test footage of him a
Speaker 1: superman and stuff, that was all a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: of him and his comic books and stuff would come up,
Speaker 1: and then this story was like so perfectly right down
Speaker 1: the middle of that perception of him that I very
Speaker 1: much remember it. I think part of what makes it
Speaker 1: so interesting, beyond sort of the meanness of Nick Cage,
Speaker 1: is that I think Cage is a incredibly sincere person
Speaker 1: in a time when that is kind of rare. He
Speaker 1: likes his things, he likes his weird cripts, he likes
Speaker 1: his comic books. That's who he is and that's what
Speaker 1: he likes. That feels more relatable than if it was
Speaker 1: like someone stole a two hundred thousand dollar car from
Speaker 1: Matt Damon. That wouldn't be interesting. But this is because
Speaker 1: it's so specific both the man and his interests that
Speaker 1: it just feels like another world right, Like it feels
Speaker 1: like fiction it's not quite Ocean's Eleven. The thieves are
Speaker 1: inept and kind of bumbling. The Cage of the movie
Speaker 1: is well, he's even more bombastic than the parodies of
Speaker 1: Cage floating around out There. He hires a hit woman
Speaker 1: to find and assassinate his comic thieves while the team
Speaker 1: tries to ransom the book back to Cage. Lennon and
Speaker 1: Grant were working on the project as far back as
Speaker 1: at the time. They hoped Nicholas Cage would agree to
Speaker 1: play himself a very exaggerated, very murdering version of himself,
Speaker 1: and Cage thought about it. He danced around the project
Speaker 1: wondering if parodying his out there persona was a good
Speaker 1: idea or not. When I came on board. Basically, they
Speaker 1: had spent a while chasing Cage trying to get to
Speaker 1: do it, and he was thinking about and kind of
Speaker 1: like going back and forth. This really isn't as ludicrous
Speaker 1: as it may sound. A while back, there was a
Speaker 1: script floating around titled Chad Schmidt, about a struggling actor
Speaker 1: who bears an uncanny resemblance to Brad Pitt. Chad is
Speaker 1: forced to watch as his doppelganger, who is portrayed as
Speaker 1: a buffoon trips into fame while poor Chad is relegated
Speaker 1: to never was status. Brad Pitt was interested in playing
Speaker 1: Chad Schmidt, as well as the script's doof as version
Speaker 1: of himself, but when they couldn't settle on a director,
Speaker 1: it fell by the wayside. Still being John Malkovich, playing
Speaker 1: yourself can work, but not for Cage. After circling action
Speaker 1: number one, he decided he didn't want to play an
Speaker 1: exaggerated version. For a minute, there was talk of Jason
Speaker 1: Statham being involved. Whether he was going to play Cage
Speaker 1: or one of the thieves was unclear, but that also
Speaker 1: wound up not happening. That left the production with no
Speaker 1: choice but to get inventive. By this point it was
Speaker 1: under the banner of Awesomeness Entertainment, a production company that
Speaker 1: since had phenomenal success with the Netflix franchise To All
Speaker 1: the Boys I've Loved Before. Awesomeness recruited Fernie to direct
Speaker 1: the script. All they needed to do was cast someone
Speaker 1: to be Nicholas Cage, but that's not easy to do,
Speaker 1: so I rewrote My rain Partners a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of came on at that point to
Speaker 1: direct it and to kind of figure out what we
Speaker 1: going to do about the fact that this movie about
Speaker 1: Nick Cage isn't going to have Nick Cage in it.
Speaker 1: So if Cage didn't want to be Cage and no
Speaker 1: other actor could step into his shoes, the filmmakers had
Speaker 1: to devise another solution, and it would be an odd
Speaker 1: acious one. There've been all this talk about like should
Speaker 1: we just never see Cage? Should it be like a
Speaker 1: Charlie's Angels thing, whereas only ever a voice on a thing,
Speaker 1: you always see him from behind stuff. And I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do that at all because that felt to
Speaker 1: me like a cheap or like that felt like that
Speaker 1: would be obvious that we couldn't do the thing that
Speaker 1: we wanted to do, which was a Nick Cage. And
Speaker 1: so then I was like, well, if it's weirder and
Speaker 1: if it's purposeful and we see these scenes where Nick
Speaker 1: Cage does show up but it's always a different actor,
Speaker 1: that's something we can kind of lean into. The Responsibility
Speaker 1: of playing Cage wouldn't fall on one person's shoulders. Four
Speaker 1: of them could share the unbearable weight. It was also
Speaker 1: a decision that broadcasts the film's intentions. This wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be a gritty true crime tale. It was going
Speaker 1: to be light on its feet, fun and hopefully funny.
Speaker 1: If we've got the other way, I think we would
Speaker 1: have pulled out of most of his scenes and just
Speaker 1: had there be some sort of standing for him, who
Speaker 1: isn't him, who works for him or someth thing. But
Speaker 1: because we did that, we only kind of worked these
Speaker 1: scenes in, and then that kind of impacted when Cage
Speaker 1: shows up in the script, because we wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of space out these different comedy folks who play him
Speaker 1: coming in. But it also gave us ability to have
Speaker 1: the fictional Nick Cage character show up throughout in a
Speaker 1: way that didn't feel like, yeah, they're really avoiding the
Speaker 1: fact that the person the movie is about isn't in
Speaker 1: the movie. According to Alex, Cage was okay with this plan.
Speaker 1: He decided he didn't want to do it, but gave
Speaker 1: his blessing to play the role of Cage. Producers cast
Speaker 1: for people that actors who play him are Rob Hubil
Speaker 1: and Missy Pyle and the Uncle and Rob Cordrey. The
Speaker 1: actors would play Cage in different scenes when the script
Speaker 1: called for Cage to make an appearance to play the
Speaker 1: comic book Thieves. Jimmy Tetro, Mike Castle, and Haley Magnus
Speaker 1: were cast. Tetro is probably best known now for his
Speaker 1: role on the ABC sitcom Home Economics. In the movie,
Speaker 1: Tetro's character, Brian In is a stereo installer who gets
Speaker 1: into cages home and notices the action number one. He
Speaker 1: convinces his friends to break in and grab the comic,
Speaker 1: which is just sitting on a coffee table. Alex started
Speaker 1: shooting the movie in Vancouver in the fall of and no,
Speaker 1: Vancouver wasn't intended to be a stand in for Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: That was where the production could get the most out
Speaker 1: of its budget, So Cage the movie Cage had to relocate.
Speaker 1: It was literally based on where we were able to
Speaker 1: because it would have made sense to do New Orleans
Speaker 1: the tax cuts, where we're like, okay, make it work
Speaker 1: in Seattle or Vancouver. You can shoot in Vancouver. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's never going to really make sense, but we can
Speaker 1: just claim that he has a house here and we
Speaker 1: just go from there. And it mostly went off without
Speaker 1: a hitch. The leads had good chemistry. The script was funny,
Speaker 1: and the conceit of Cage being played by different performers
Speaker 1: was definitely going to get the movie some attention. But
Speaker 1: it was important that while the movie would have fun
Speaker 1: with Cage, it wouldn't make fun of Cage. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was that, and there was like right before we started
Speaker 1: shooting too, there's a bunch of cold feat that like
Speaker 1: this was too weird. And then I think once we
Speaker 1: did it it where it talls like, oh, this is fun,
Speaker 1: And I think that's the most fun stuff in the
Speaker 1: movie because everyone knows that, everyone knows his thing and
Speaker 1: it's great and everyone likes it, and I think that's
Speaker 1: more fun, like more like I guess, celebratory. When the
Speaker 1: Cage actors would come on set, Alex explained that he
Speaker 1: wasn't looking for a Cage impression, more of a Cage essence.
Speaker 1: All of the actors who played him, every one of
Speaker 1: them was afraid of it when I first approached them
Speaker 1: to do it, because it is such a weird ask
Speaker 1: you when come to Vancouver for like a day and
Speaker 1: play Nick Cage, and every one of them I had
Speaker 1: to kind of walk through, like we're not looking for
Speaker 1: a very authentic, accurate impression when I have been look
Speaker 1: for impression and all we just want people to kind
Speaker 1: of play what you think his ibe is, what his
Speaker 1: energy is, in whatever way that means to you. And
Speaker 1: all four of them are recognizably Nick Cage, but do
Speaker 1: it in very different ways, which I think is very cool.
Speaker 1: But they were all at first kind of like what
Speaker 1: what is what is this? Like I'm not an impression
Speaker 1: this to be, Like no, no, you don't have to be,
Speaker 1: especially when it's like Missy Pyle coming up being like
Speaker 1: you brought me up to play this man for this
Speaker 1: one scene, like yeah, okay, I'll talk you through it.
Speaker 1: And then everyone got it and they were all very fun.
Speaker 1: After shooting, Fernie edited the film. It was scored in
Speaker 1: today's streaming landscape, it didn't seem like there would be
Speaker 1: much of an issue finding a home. They all needed content,
Speaker 1: especially during a pending pandemic when productions were being shut
Speaker 1: down left and right. And then we kind of wrapped
Speaker 1: up the post. I had hoped for some reshoots and
Speaker 1: some other stuff that ended up falling apart. We probably
Speaker 1: should have been the first time, but it right at
Speaker 1: the end of that there was a conversation I had
Speaker 1: had with some of the Awesomeness people, and they were
Speaker 1: excited about it, and they're talking a where they're going
Speaker 1: to do it. And then I never talked to people
Speaker 1: a get because they all left the company, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever had another conversation with someone at
Speaker 1: the Dust Company. Again, it's like we sent it in
Speaker 1: not even really acknowledgement of it, and then it just
Speaker 1: like literally disappeared. And it went from being like, this
Speaker 1: is really fun, we'll get this out there, We've got
Speaker 1: some plans, we'll keep talking about it too, we're all quitting,
Speaker 1: we're all going to start our own companies, and then
Speaker 1: just dead silence for at this point now five years.
Speaker 1: It's not as though Cage had ever had particularly good
Speaker 1: luck with Superman movies. At the height of his box
Speaker 1: office stature in the late nine nineties, he agreed to
Speaker 1: play Superman, his first ever superhero role. He had and
Speaker 1: would be connected to other comic book projects like Constantine,
Speaker 1: which eventually went to Keanu Reeves. For the record, It's
Speaker 1: pronounced Constantine in the comics and Hard Boiled, a pulp
Speaker 1: comic written by comics legend Frank Miller, but Superman was
Speaker 1: the Big One, a beautiful freak, Cage said of the character.
Speaker 1: When Cage accepted the role in he was about to
Speaker 1: kick off an incredible run of action movie hits Conner
Speaker 1: Face Off the Rock. Those three movies combined made over
Speaker 1: half a billion dollars. He had transformed himself from an
Speaker 1: eccentric character actor who ate live cockroaches and vampire's kiss
Speaker 1: to a more refined version of Sylvester Stallone and Don't
Speaker 1: Forget This Superman was also an Oscar winner for leaving
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. Cage's run in the nineties was something to
Speaker 1: witness firsthand. It was an opportunity afforded to a select
Speaker 1: group of people. One of them was Marco Kiras, Cage's
Speaker 1: tenured stand in. Not a stunt devil. Marco doesn't do
Speaker 1: any jumping. You can't set Marco on fire. But when
Speaker 1: you need someone who looks like Cage to stand in
Speaker 1: Cage's place while the lighting is being set up, that's
Speaker 1: how you've called. For years. Marco had often been told
Speaker 1: he looked a lot like Cage. Yes, yeah, often, but
Speaker 1: different people, they said, Cage and Alec Baldin. Depends on
Speaker 1: how heavy I was getting. Joe Montagna Cage. You know,
Speaker 1: it just depended on my look, my attire. But Marco
Speaker 1: didn't really want the job at first. After being in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles for a few years and doing the waiter thing,
Speaker 1: sure he recognized an opportunity. It was a chance to
Speaker 1: double for Cage in the heist comedy Trapped in Paradise.
Speaker 1: But the gig was in the winter in Toronto, the
Speaker 1: coldest winter in years, and so I said no. I said,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I've never done the job, but
Speaker 1: I decline, and they all got piste off at me
Speaker 1: because it was the perfect fit for the Cage, and
Speaker 1: they convinced me to do the job. So I actually
Speaker 1: then took the job. He came with perks right off
Speaker 1: the top. I didn't know any different, to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth, but that's where it all happened. So I
Speaker 1: was a real needed fit. I had all the union work,
Speaker 1: and I had film experience, but not standing experience. So
Speaker 1: to me it was a bit of a degrading position.
Speaker 1: But I realized it was a really necessary position. So
Speaker 1: when I started to work in this film, within a month,
Speaker 1: he was very interested in me, and he thought I
Speaker 1: was very good, and basically I followed the rules and
Speaker 1: I did the right stuff, and he asked me to
Speaker 1: go on tour with him as a standard, and I did.
Speaker 1: I had nothing else going on in life. It was
Speaker 1: very unique to be in a position where Nick Cage
Speaker 1: was the biggest star in the world and I was
Speaker 1: the biggest star standing in the world, and I didn't
Speaker 1: really know it or appreciate it because we are working
Speaker 1: so many films and in so many locations that our
Speaker 1: hands were just constantly in the work. Whatever Marco might
Speaker 1: have felt about the job before, it turned out to
Speaker 1: be a pretty good deal. There were perks. Cage didn't
Speaker 1: just buy stuff for himself, he bought stuff for everyone
Speaker 1: around him. Yeah, it was. It was definitely travel because
Speaker 1: obviously I did all those films and traveled, and they
Speaker 1: put you up to the hotels to give you a
Speaker 1: rent a car, to give you per deems on a contract.
Speaker 1: It was a real perky package. A lot of gifts
Speaker 1: from Cage. That guy showers you with gifts. The guy
Speaker 1: is the biggest giver I had ever met in my life,
Speaker 1: let alone in Hollywood. Oh my god. Everything anything from
Speaker 1: designers suits to jackets to luggage to expensive bottles of wine.
Speaker 1: And Scotch and right down to a Rolex watch. I
Speaker 1: mean just endless gifts, just gives you never expect in
Speaker 1: your lifetime in the position that I had, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't only me, it was everybody, So we all benefited
Speaker 1: because of his generosity. He's just a person who's beyond thankful.
Speaker 1: So Cage and Marco was in a prime position in
Speaker 1: the nineties as Warner Brothers was gearing up to make
Speaker 1: a new Superman movie. The studio hadn't made one since
Speaker 1: Superman four, The Quest for Peace, in which was Christopher
Speaker 1: Reeve's last outing as the character. Since then, it had
Speaker 1: been a parade of scripts and pitches, which ranged from
Speaker 1: Superman rescuing the tiny bottle city of Candor to fighting Brainiac,
Speaker 1: one of his most famous comic book villains. There was
Speaker 1: even a brief announcement of a Superman five starring Reeve,
Speaker 1: but it never got beyond the talking stages. Reeve suffered
Speaker 1: from a catastrophic horse riding accident in that left him
Speaker 1: paralyzed from the neck down. Warner had been focused on
Speaker 1: their Batman franchise, which had been ushered to the screen
Speaker 1: by a producer and Batman super fan named Michael Uslan.
Speaker 1: He steered the production away from ideas like Bill Murray
Speaker 1: as Batman and straight to Tim Burton. Burton had developed
Speaker 1: a reputation for making movies about outcasts, like Beetlejuice and
Speaker 1: Peewee's Big Adventure. Burton made Batman a huge hit nine,
Speaker 1: and then he made a sequel in Batman Returns. A
Speaker 1: third Batman movie, Batman Forever, was released in without Burton.
Speaker 1: Warner obviously saw potential in their comic book Slate. The
Speaker 1: next move was to bring back Superman. Now the Man
Speaker 1: of Steel had been popping up. There was a syndicated
Speaker 1: Superboy series in the early nine nineties which was devoted
Speaker 1: to the character's college life. There was also Lewis and
Speaker 1: Clark The New Adventures of Superman, an ABC hit about
Speaker 1: a more domestic Clark Kent that starred Dean Kane and
Speaker 1: Terry Hatcher. But Warner had always been apprehensive about investing
Speaker 1: a lot of money on a major new Superman movie.
Speaker 1: You had to treat Superman with kid gloves. He was
Speaker 1: more than just the first superhero. He was, in their eyes,
Speaker 1: a commodity, and at the time, putting someone in tights
Speaker 1: with sincerity was always caused for concern. Even Batman went
Speaker 1: from a gritty Michael Keaton to Val Kilmer joking about
Speaker 1: taking the Batmobile to drive throughs. Was anyone going to
Speaker 1: buy the big Blue Boy Scout in the grunge era?
Speaker 1: The involvement of Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage seemed to
Speaker 1: convince them. Burton had imagined Batman as a dark hero,
Speaker 1: absolving the character from the pop art incarnation of the
Speaker 1: nineties sixties Adam West television series. If he could do
Speaker 1: it for Batman, who was much maligned by then, he
Speaker 1: could certainly do it for Superman. Burton was the director
Speaker 1: Cage wanted. They agreed that Superman would be an outsider,
Speaker 1: an element that hadn't really been explored on film. How
Speaker 1: would you feel if you were the most powerful being
Speaker 1: on the planet? Would you feel emboldened or ostracized? Age
Speaker 1: was excited by this. He felt Superman was a way
Speaker 1: of telling kids it was okay to be different. He
Speaker 1: felt like a character this big and this well known
Speaker 1: had a direct line to children, and he wanted a
Speaker 1: positive message to be delivered to them. He invited Burton
Speaker 1: over to his house for a brainstorming session while a
Speaker 1: screenwriter named Wesley Strike took copious notes. Cage liked talking
Speaker 1: about it. The word was you know, he really wanted
Speaker 1: to do it. It was a different take on Superman.
Speaker 1: He did ask me if I met the director, I
Speaker 1: find you Tim Burton, And to my surprise, he didn't
Speaker 1: know Tim Burton because he's also from Los Angeles. And
Speaker 1: I said, yes, I've met him and I've worked with him.
Speaker 1: I said, you're gonna love this guy. He's just brilliant. Well,
Speaker 1: it would be something different, it would still be a
Speaker 1: major blockbuster. In Superman lives, Superman would have to deal
Speaker 1: with both Lex Luthor and Brainiac, who developed a relentless
Speaker 1: monster named Doomsday that can match the heroes Braun. After
Speaker 1: seemingly dying, Superman is resurrected and goes on to conquer
Speaker 1: his enemies and hopefully the box office. There would be
Speaker 1: happy Meal, toys and sequels, and maybe even a team
Speaker 1: up with Batman. Cage wasn't the only big attraction either.
Speaker 1: Burton wanted Jim Carey to play Brainiac, Sandra Bullock was
Speaker 1: considered for Lois Lane, and Chris Rock was cast as
Speaker 1: Jimmy Olsen. So Werner began writing checks a lot of checks.
Speaker 1: Millions were spent on sets, on script ory rights, on costuming.
Speaker 1: Location experts started scouting Pittsburgh to stand in from Metropolis.
Speaker 1: Cage threw himself into the role. For one thing, he
Speaker 1: bought a copy of Action Comics Number one, maybe to
Speaker 1: have a physical connection with the history of the character.
Speaker 1: It was one thing to steep yourself in comic book
Speaker 1: mythology and another to become a part of it. But
Speaker 1: that's what he was doing, becoming a new version of
Speaker 1: a hero he had long admired. It was an intriguing
Speaker 1: blend of Americana and cages surrealist approach to acting. Who
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to see this film? Then it was time
Speaker 1: for Cage to go in for a costume fitting. So
Speaker 1: did his body devil Marco Kiris. We know what happened,
Speaker 1: but Marco says he would have lost weight. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would have lost the weight. The footage is out there online.
Speaker 1: You can probably find it, though of course we can't
Speaker 1: indorse the unauthorized distribution of such material. But when you
Speaker 1: see it, you immediately notice how wonder struck Cages by
Speaker 1: being in the iconic costume. It's a little stiff. All
Speaker 1: this molded rubber, and it needs professional cinematography, not the
Speaker 1: camcorder someone is using to record the fitting. But how
Speaker 1: the costume looks isn't really what's important. Cage is looking
Speaker 1: at himself in a mirror, as though a boyhood dream
Speaker 1: were coming true. He had come so far from childhood
Speaker 1: when he once dressed as Batman for Halloween, but then
Speaker 1: lost the cape, so he had to use a green
Speaker 1: plaid blanket instead. You can imagine that little boy not
Speaker 1: quite believing what's happening now, But that sense of wonder
Speaker 1: couldn't last. Burton and Cage worked on the Superman movie
Speaker 1: for roughly a year. The first sign of trouble came
Speaker 1: when Warner realized Cage it was due to start shooting
Speaker 1: a film called Snake Eyes for director Brian de Palma
Speaker 1: in October. The start of that film overlapped with the
Speaker 1: shooting schedule for Superman Lives, which turned into a territorial
Speaker 1: tug of war for Cages services. Neither studio wanted to
Speaker 1: back down, both believed they had the right to retain Cage.
Speaker 1: When that was resolved, Superman Lives appeared ready for takeoff,
Speaker 1: but as they often did, executives at Warner brothers started
Speaker 1: to second guess their decision. Was Burton really the right
Speaker 1: person to reinvent Superman. His esthetic worked beautifully for Batman,
Speaker 1: who fit perfectly into Burton's dark and gothic visions, but
Speaker 1: Superman was something else, entirely a bright, optimistic hero. They
Speaker 1: started to worry Superman was about to get weird and expensive,
Speaker 1: and Cage didn't exactly convince them otherwise. He wanted to
Speaker 1: play Superman as an outcast, a lost soul. Calling him
Speaker 1: a beautiful freak probably didn't make the Happy Meal people
Speaker 1: too confident. Warner had to make a decision and quickly.
Speaker 1: In the end, they decided to pull the plug on
Speaker 1: Burton and Cage. A Warner executive named Bill Gerber had
Speaker 1: to call Cages manager Jerry Harrington. The executive said it
Speaker 1: was one of the most uncomfortable calls he had ever
Speaker 1: had to make in the business. Superman lives was dead.
Speaker 1: The only footage of Nicholas Cage as Superman would be
Speaker 1: some costume tests shot on VHS. According to Marco, Cage
Speaker 1: was devastated. I think it would have been great. I
Speaker 1: think it was very disappointed that it didn't happen. I
Speaker 1: think It's one of the things that he wanted to
Speaker 1: do forever, and now he can't come back to because
Speaker 1: he's a different age group and you know it's not
Speaker 1: gonna work. Marco worked with Cage for a few more
Speaker 1: years and then the two had a bit of a
Speaker 1: falling out. Marco isn't too eager to discuss details, but
Speaker 1: something happened in South Africa where Cage was shooting a film.
Speaker 1: Some events happened while we were in South Africa, and
Speaker 1: when we got back, he had already dismissed a couple
Speaker 1: of key entourage members, and when we got back, three
Speaker 1: or four of us were then let go at the
Speaker 1: same time. So nobody really knows exactly what happened because
Speaker 1: it wasn't mentioned. It was only mentioned through his producer.
Speaker 1: And it was a bitter moment than it just ended.
Speaker 1: Not that we weren't tired and everybody was working and
Speaker 1: overworked at this time, but it was kind of like
Speaker 1: a blow to us that it all just kind of
Speaker 1: ended with one phone call, and not just for me,
Speaker 1: but for a few of us. Just one other thing, Marco,
Speaker 1: did you no, no, no, I've never seen the comics
Speaker 1: other than what was reported on the news or a
Speaker 1: picture of them somewhere. I've never actually seen them, but
Speaker 1: that's a that's a good spinner. Marco isn't sure who's
Speaker 1: responsible for taking the books, but he thinks it's certainly
Speaker 1: conceivable it was an inside job, and the idea of
Speaker 1: that bums him out. Because Cage was a good boss.
Speaker 1: They don't understand his generosity, they don't understand his commitment
Speaker 1: to the people who work for him. So if anybody
Speaker 1: steals from him, it's just you've crippled him. It's like
Speaker 1: a little child. Why would you steal from somebody who
Speaker 1: gives you so much. Marco left the film industry and
Speaker 1: went into real estate, where he's done well. Cage, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: wouldn't get a chance to play a comic book character
Speaker 1: until two thousand seven, when he started as Johnny Blaze
Speaker 1: in ghost Writer. There was one upside, though. Cage's Superman
Speaker 1: deal was reported to be pay or play, meaning he
Speaker 1: got paid even if the movie never got made. He
Speaker 1: took home four million dollars all for trying on a suit.
Speaker 1: At least he could buy some more comics. Burton got
Speaker 1: paid too, so did the countless screenwriters who'd been working
Speaker 1: on the movie since Warner had sunk tens of millions
Speaker 1: into a new Superman film and had nothing to show
Speaker 1: for it. So maybe a movie not about Superman but
Speaker 1: about Cage being a fan of Superman would be different, right.
Speaker 1: Alex Fernie shot the action number one movie in the
Speaker 1: fall of and had it pretty much done in and
Speaker 1: while it probably wasn't due for a major theatrical rollout,
Speaker 1: he was pretty sure it would wind up in his
Speaker 1: Netflix queue. That had been kind of my impression. What
Speaker 1: had been told to me was the idea was Awesomeness
Speaker 1: the production company, I think, a good relationship like Netflix
Speaker 1: and some other place, and be like, we'll probably gonna
Speaker 1: make this for streaming. We'll see if there's a distributor
Speaker 1: wants to do it, and maybe we'll do like some
Speaker 1: festivals and then go to streaming, which is great, slow
Speaker 1: budget thing. I actual think it could have found a
Speaker 1: home there. People could have discovered it, but as the
Speaker 1: months went by, no one at Awesomeness was reaching out
Speaker 1: to offer a production update. Fernie asked about it but
Speaker 1: never got a response. It was not very awesome. Literally,
Speaker 1: no one knows or has any good answers. They just
Speaker 1: kind of like went away because we tried to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I bet we could get some fun like festivals to
Speaker 1: do it feels like it would be fun for that.
Speaker 1: Couldn't get that to happen. My guests as to what happened,
Speaker 1: and this is one conjecture on my part, is around
Speaker 1: that time Awesomeness also started. I feel like they kind
Speaker 1: of like focused in on a certain demographic and a
Speaker 1: certain approach that this movie didn't fit with, and they
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with it, so they just
Speaker 1: kind of put it away. That's my best guess. Okay,
Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense. Awesomeness moved in a different direction,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't explain that for years Fernie couldn't even
Speaker 1: get a copy of his own film from the company.
Speaker 1: They seemed reluctant to acknowledge it even existed. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even get a copy of it for myself to see,
Speaker 1: which was insane. That's with like executive producers trying to
Speaker 1: get it, that they couldn't get it. We probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: say if we were among those who caught a screen
Speaker 1: of this elusive movie, but if we were, hypothetically we
Speaker 1: suppose it might involve Cage being very irate that his
Speaker 1: copy of Action Comics Number one has been stolen, and
Speaker 1: unlike the real Cage, who was upset but somewhat resigned
Speaker 1: to his fate, this version of Cage decides to enlist
Speaker 1: the services of an assassin to hunt down the thieves.
Speaker 1: The movie, Cage appears in a few scenes. As we discussed,
Speaker 1: every time he shows up, he's played by a different actor.
Speaker 1: There's no in movie explanation for this. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like that Bob Dylan movie where Dylan was played by
Speaker 1: everyone from Cate Blanchette to Christian Bale. It's a little
Speaker 1: surrealist as a nod to the very surrealist actor they're portraying.
Speaker 1: The movie culminates in a showdown at a comic convention,
Speaker 1: and even though the film isn't circulating, it still feels
Speaker 1: in poor form to spoil it, so we'll just say
Speaker 1: it's well, it's fine. It's not an affront to humanity.
Speaker 1: It's a modestly budgeted movie that dips along. That's what's
Speaker 1: so weird is there's no one in it who has
Speaker 1: become problematic sense, and you would think that there would
Speaker 1: be places it could go to at least make them
Speaker 1: some money, but they would rather spare it. And again, also,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds like it's like, oh, it's probably
Speaker 1: so bad that they're bearing, because that's what I would assume.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's perfect and I don't think I
Speaker 1: hit a home run on it, but I think it,
Speaker 1: by and large works, and that's one of the things
Speaker 1: that surprises me is that it just disappeared. So we
Speaker 1: reached out to Peter Principato, the owner of Artists First,
Speaker 1: the management and production company that represents Alex along with
Speaker 1: the writers Thomas Lennon and Robert ben Grant. Artists First
Speaker 1: also helped produce the movie. Peter told us in an
Speaker 1: email that he simply doesn't know that he wishes he
Speaker 1: could answer of the question. He went on to say
Speaker 1: that Awesomeness controls the movie and there's been some executive
Speaker 1: turnover and as a result, the release of the film
Speaker 1: has gotten completely lost. So we went to Awesomeness. We
Speaker 1: reached out to a number of executives. The question was
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward. You made a movie and own the rights
Speaker 1: to it, so why not release it. Most of them
Speaker 1: wouldn't respond, but one awesomeness executive did in an email,
Speaker 1: he said, there were no plans for Action number one
Speaker 1: right now, Well, we kind of established that, but okay,
Speaker 1: so we started thinking about why else films get shelved.
Speaker 1: In many cases it comes down to rights issues. With
Speaker 1: Action Number one, there are two potentially problematic elements at play.
Speaker 1: The first is that comic. Now, any movie character can
Speaker 1: talk about Superman all they like, or Madonna or Star Wars,
Speaker 1: but showing it, the viewer gets fleeting glimpses of Action
Speaker 1: Comics Number one in scenes from the movie, and that
Speaker 1: comic and Superman himself are the intellectual property of Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: which owns DC Comics. His image belongs to them. So
Speaker 1: could Warner have raised an issue? Alex doesn't think so.
Speaker 1: It was the same thing because the props we use
Speaker 1: were repros that DC at some point had put out. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we're waving around real, insanely expensive crisis comics, but they
Speaker 1: were real reprose of that we didn't make them, and
Speaker 1: that again is what have allowed legal to let us
Speaker 1: do it. If you show Superman and you're not trying
Speaker 1: to make it off brand Superman movie, it should be
Speaker 1: fine unless it's not. That's their fear, their deep fear
Speaker 1: of being sued down the line. So in this case,
Speaker 1: they're like, we have a great case to be made
Speaker 1: of their use because we're using the actual thing. We're
Speaker 1: not disparaging anything, so we can just kind of for it.
Speaker 1: But maybe that was the issue, and the second complication
Speaker 1: might be more relevant, that complication being Nicolas Cage. While
Speaker 1: Cage did give his blessing, according to Alex, there are
Speaker 1: other issues at play depending on how he gave that permission.
Speaker 1: Cage could have had second thoughts, and could have had
Speaker 1: second thoughts just as he was gearing up to play
Speaker 1: himself in the Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. The idea
Speaker 1: of two meta Nicolas Cage comedies may have started to
Speaker 1: seem less appealing to the man who is now dealing
Speaker 1: with multiple fictional versions of himself. We got a pretty
Speaker 1: good sense of all this from David Heinrich. David is
Speaker 1: an entertainment lawyer who deals with clearances or making sure
Speaker 1: a movie or television production isn't shooting itself in the
Speaker 1: foot by depicting a real person or someone else's intellectual property.
Speaker 1: Here's David, so with a lot like this Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: is tied to the DC universe. DC as an entity
Speaker 1: on their own have their own stake in Superman an
Speaker 1: Action number one, Nicolas Cage his personal estate, and then
Speaker 1: any of the film companies that are working with him
Speaker 1: currently and that need him to be a recognizable and
Speaker 1: lovable name their marketing purposes. It's just the who's who
Speaker 1: had any one of them should be a roadblock, and
Speaker 1: several of them in conjunction. If there were several of
Speaker 1: these issues altogether and I was representing Netflix or somebody,
Speaker 1: my recommation were probably just to be like, not forget it,
Speaker 1: Like it's probably not worth it. People in the public
Speaker 1: eye have something known as publicity rights. It means that
Speaker 1: taking someone like Cage and portraying them as, say, a
Speaker 1: murderous psychopath in a movie could conceivably create some problems
Speaker 1: for filmmakers that wouldn't exist with a non fiction article
Speaker 1: or documentary or podcast. It also not a documentary, it's
Speaker 1: not a nonfiction film. This is a fictionalized account. Um,
Speaker 1: you have a broaderly way. The fact that Action Number
Speaker 1: One was a modestly budgeted movie may have also played
Speaker 1: a part. And if the movie is like a B
Speaker 1: minus comedy. Right, if you're not going to be making
Speaker 1: eight million, I don't know, I think we can, then
Speaker 1: why do you want to have a six million dollar
Speaker 1: legal fight? Because like when it comes to the accounting,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's going to make more money
Speaker 1: that it loses in court, like the opportunity cost on Well,
Speaker 1: would the seven million we spent on legal fees be
Speaker 1: better just getting Jason Momo to show up in the
Speaker 1: next whatever, Right, So here's one possible outcome. Action number
Speaker 1: one is written, shot and edited, and then Awesomeness goes
Speaker 1: in search of a distributor, and the distributor realizes that
Speaker 1: the cost of ensuring this movie, given the potential legal
Speaker 1: exposure or depicting a fictional and violent cage and an
Speaker 1: illustration of Superman, simply isn't worth the trouble. So if
Speaker 1: the film comes out and Nicholas Cages like a madman
Speaker 1: ordering hit squads to kill somebody over a comic book,
Speaker 1: comedy is subjective, and accountants and legal teams are necessarily
Speaker 1: pessimists who will always be thinking about the worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: It's without like written sign off from Mr Cage saying yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm totally fine with this. If it's going to be
Speaker 1: decided by his authorized representatives, it's essentially our job to
Speaker 1: err on the side of caution, and so if that's
Speaker 1: what happens, it's it's reasonable to assume that they put
Speaker 1: the brakes on. So why wouldn't Awesomeness figure all of
Speaker 1: this out before shooting? It could be that they took
Speaker 1: a shoot first, ask questions later approach. According to David,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the first time a major production put
Speaker 1: off clear into until the shooting was completed. Or it
Speaker 1: could be Cage wanted his unbearably massive talent to not
Speaker 1: have a competing meta project. One kind of fake Cage
Speaker 1: like Marco is okay, but this one maybe not. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, Alex finally managed to get a
Speaker 1: copy of his movie. He may have held a super
Speaker 1: exclusive online screening for a handful of friends just so
Speaker 1: it could have some kind of audience. Every now and then,
Speaker 1: I still try to nudge it along and see if
Speaker 1: they can do something with a view of you know,
Speaker 1: I've done a hypothetical underground streaming of it once on
Speaker 1: Twitch for some people. It's one of those things I
Speaker 1: think is fun and silly, and I think if people
Speaker 1: have found it have been like, yeah, I'll watch this,
Speaker 1: this is fun, instead of sitting on a drive on
Speaker 1: some shelf like the lost Ark of the Covenant some
Speaker 1: Culver City office. Alex likes the movie he made. He's
Speaker 1: still in the dark about why other people can't see it,
Speaker 1: and he's not her Cage has seen it either, but
Speaker 1: he still has an idea for an end credit scene.
Speaker 1: There was one we couldn't even get close to, although
Speaker 1: I think we should have tried harder. I desperately wanted
Speaker 1: there to be a button in the movie, and we
Speaker 1: even left space for it in case it somehow came
Speaker 1: together at the very very end as a credit sting
Speaker 1: with one more knit Cage, And in my dream world,
Speaker 1: I really wanted it to be Travolta as a face
Speaker 1: off sort of thing at the end, and it just
Speaker 1: didn't come together. But I think that was a bit fun.
Speaker 1: So maybe we'll never see a dramatic reenactment of the
Speaker 1: day Nicolas Cage found his comics missing, or a comedic
Speaker 1: one for that matter. But as upset as Nicolas Cage
Speaker 1: was when it happened, time seems to heal all comic
Speaker 1: heist related wounds. There probably came a time when he
Speaker 1: accepted that his copy of the comic was gone forever.
Speaker 1: To write a movie scene where someone held the comic
Speaker 1: aloft in their hand and announced to the world that
Speaker 1: they had found it would seem unbelievable, except that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. But before we get there, we need to
Speaker 1: take a step back to where all of this began,
Speaker 1: not with Cage, but with Superman and his creators, back
Speaker 1: to a real crime that would leave a father day
Speaker 1: and a son searching to make sense of it all
Speaker 1: to understand what Nick Cage lost. We're going back to
Speaker 1: where it all started, where the man of Steele's co
Speaker 1: creator was robbed of his youth and changed pop culture forever.
Speaker 1: That's next on Stealing Superman. Oh sorry, almost forgot to ask,
Speaker 1: Alex I did not take the comic. Stealing Superman is
Speaker 1: written by Jake Rawson, sound design, scoring and mixing by
Speaker 1: Josh Fisher, additional sting by Jonathan Washington, original music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, mixing and mastering by Baheed Fraser. Research and
Speaker 1: fact checking by Jake Rawson and Austin Thompson, with production
Speaker 1: support from Lulu Philip show logo by Lucy Quintinia. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Jason English and I'm your host Danish Sports.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying this show, check out Haileywood and Noble
Speaker 1: Blood and give us a nice review. We'll see you
Speaker 1: next week.