Nicolas Cage explains why he wants to play the Batman villain Egghead. Cage famously was almost Superman before Tim Burton’s ill-fated Superman Lives project fell apart. Now all that remains of Cage’s Kal-El turn is some tantalizing test footage and a lot of legendary stories.
But Superman Lives was not in fact the only time Cage got close to playing a superhero on screen only to have things fall through. In the 1990s, Cage was actually rumored to take on the role of Iron Man in a very early pre-MCU movie (that obviously never happened). Later, Cage was offered the role of Green Goblin in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man but turned it down. A few years after that, Cage was attached to Constantine before dropping out along with director Tarsem Singh. Though none of those opportunities came to fruition for Cage, the actor did eventually get to join the world of comic book movies, playing Ghost Rider in a pair of non-MCU Marvel films.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
It now seems like a very long-shot indeed that Cage will ever return to the role of Ghost Rider and bring the character to the MCU. However, Cage has mentioned another comic book character he’d like to play, one from the DC side of the fence. And the character in Cage’s sights is none other than Egghead, the Batman villain played by Vincent Price on the 1960s TV show. Appearing this week on the podcast Happy Sad Confused, Cage gave the reasons why Egghead is the Batman villain for him:
You know what I mean it’s like, Egghead is Vincent Price right? He’s one of our other great American superstar actors that I revere and had so much fun watching growing up. Theater of Blood. So I was watching the Batman show, because I really wanted to see what Vincent Price was going to do. And the character’s hilarious. I mean, everything starts with “Egg-cellent.” And it’s, “Egg-static.” But I’m not calling Warner Bros.. This is just more of a fun little thing. Cause I’m on a red carpet, somebody asks me a question, I want to give them a funny answer. But there is an approach to that character that could be terrifying. And I’ve thought a lot about it. I’m not going to share it with you.
The bald, egg-punning Egghead is in fact a character who was created for the Batman TV show, and only later popped up in the pages of DC Comics. Egghead was then on the short list of Batman villains to make the jump to the big-screen in the planned Joel Schumacher film Batman Unchained, along with King Tut, The Mad Hatter and The Scarecrow. But obviously that film never happened and so Egghead’s big cinematic break was put on hold. Since that time, Egghead’s only movie appearance was a brief, animated one in The Lego Batman Movie.
Egghead clearly is a very eccentric and wacky Batman character, which is likely why Cage is drawn to him. It’s hard to imagine of course how such a character would fit into the dark-and-gritty Batman world as conceived by Matt Reeves, the current custodian of the Caped Crusader for Warner Bros.. And indeed from his above comments, Cage doesn’t sound all that serious about the prospects of bringing the character to life in the first place. It seems instead that Cage likes throwing out the idea of his playing Egghead as a handy red carpet answer any time the subject of superhero movies comes up. But at the same time, Cage admits his love of Price’s portrayal, and says he has ideas about how to make Egghead terrifying. So maybe the Batman villain will eventually find his way into the DCEU, with Cage bringing him memorably to life.