Kevin Smith Defends ‘The Flash’ Cameos: ‘When I’m Dead, You Can Stick Me in Porn’
“I have spent the better part of 30 years of my career referencing the movies,” says Kevin Smith. “And now I’ve lived long enough where the movies are starting to reference me back.” He’s talking about The Flash, which, among its numerous cameos, includes a truly wild one, directly inspired by an infamous story Smith has been telling for years. (You can stop reading here if you’re spoiler-averse, although even director Andy Muschietti is already publicly talking about it.)
Toward the end of the movie, we see glimpses of various DC worlds in a multiverse, among them one where Superman is played by Nicolas Cage, who’s seen fighting a giant spider. In 1996, Smith — riding high on the success of Clerks and Mallrats — wrote several screenplay drafts for a Superman movie under the supervision of legendary producer Jon Peters, who began his career with 1976’s A Star Is Born. As documented in the entertaining 2015 documentary Superman Lives: What Happened? and in many of Smith’s public appearances over the years, Peters had a series of wildly idiosyncratic demands for the movie — most notably, that Superman had to fight a giant spider. Tim Burton signed on to direct the film and cast Nicolas Cage in the title role, but despite going as far as production sketches and costume tests, the movie never happened.
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But for Smith, at least, that moment in The Flash feels like a long-delayed triumph. “I’ve been telling that story since 1997,” he says. “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.'”
When did you first hear about this cameo and the giant spider thing?
So, Russ Burlingame, who works at Comicbook.com, hit me up like two months ago, and he said, “I’m gonna spoil a piece of The Flash, but I think it’s gonna make your day.” I’m not a very anti-spoiler person, so I was just like, yeah. And he goes, “In The Flash, they show Nic Cage’s Superman fighting a giant spider.” I just about passed out when I heard that.
I had interviewed Andy Muschietti at Comic-Con San Diego, when I was interviewing people for IMDb before the pandemic. It was for It Chapter Two, but he had already been announced as the director of The Flash. And if he knew about it then, he didn’t say anything. I mean, I would have blown the dude if he was like, “You know what we’re gonna do in The Flash….”
And when did you finally see it?
I got to go to the premiere the other day, and then I watched it again last night here at the movie theater I own, SModcastle Cinemas [in Atlantic Highlands, N.J.]. I’m watching it again Friday and Saturday at the movie theater with audiences. It’s mind-melting. 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.
Wait, so you like the giant spider now?
You know what? He wasn’t wrong. Like, it totally could have panned out.
I was taken aback by how offended people were about Christopher Reeve and George Reeves showing up in The Flash briefly. What did you think?
It didn’t bother me all. I thought it was just a really nice homage to the past. It didn’t feel like an insult. That felt like an homage. Some people are like, “Yeah, but they’re not alive to say yes or no.” And you know, I don’t know any actor who would be like, “Don’t use my image when I’m dead.” Like, you don’t go into this business to try to be shy, right? You want to be seen. And, look, I’ll give the world permission right now. When I’m fucking dead, you can literally do anything to my image or to Silent Bob in a movie. Anything you want. You could stick me in fucking porn, dude. I’ll be happy to be relevant even though I’m not around anymore. I worked 30 years to get my name out there and keep my name on some of the public’s mind. If somebody’s gonna do it for me for free after my death? Oh, please do it, by all means.
It was Tim Burton who cast Nicolas Cage in the aborted Superman Lives movie, but it was actually your idea originally, right?
Jon Peters was like, “I want Sean Penn to play Superman.” He had just seen Dead Man Walking, and he goes, “Look at his eyes in that movie. He’s got the eyes of a violent animal, a caged killer.” And I was like, “Bro, it’s Superman!” So he’s like, “Who do you see? I always loved Nic Cage, so I was like, “Nic Cage loves Superman. He talks about knowing the comics real well. You guys should go after Nic Cage.” And so when Tim Burton got hired, and suddenly they were going with Nic Cage, I was like, wow, I had an idea and somebody took it seriously. So there’s some sense of weird closure to everything In seeing that moment in The Flash.
And I feel like both Peters and I, who couldn’t be more different from one another, but are two people that are incredibly satisfied by seeing that moment he finally got his giant spider fighting Superman. And I finally got to see Nic Cage be Superman. It has been an absolute delight for me. Like, if I had made the Flash movie and that moment showed up, people would have been like, “What a self-serving son of a bitch.” But the fact that it showed up as essentially a deep–cuts pop-culture reference delights me. After all these shout-outs all these years, the things I love are starting to shout-out back. I saw Tony Gilroy talking about Clerks in an Andor interview! I’m a huge fan of Michael Clayton. To see him reference not just my name but my work?
It seems really important to you to keep feeling like a fan.
As much as I consider myself something of a filmmaker, I was a member of the audience first. And that, to me, remains the most important aspect of my relationship with cinema, is not being the guy that makes the stuff, but being the guy that loves this stuff. I do love making Kevin Smith movies, because I’m a huge Kevin Smith whore and a big fan of Kevin Smith. But with comic-book movies, I need to love this shit like I did before I was in the movie business, because that’s part of what fuels me. My father’s been dead for 20 years. But like, when I go see something like The Flash, my father’s alive again, because he used to take me to see shit like that. And that’s far more important to me than like, “Oh, I’m directing one of these things now.”
But you wouldn’t mind a cameo of your own, right?
I mean, look, I’ll be honest with you, it’d be even better if they put me in the fucking things. That’d be way good for my brand. Oh my god. After we saw The Flash, Jason Mewes and I started lamenting, like, “Why don’t they ever hire us just to be the people that get punched by Batman in the movie? Like, we literally know the guy that plays Batman! How can can we hook that up?” And Jason’s always like, “I think they think we’re, like, too proud.” And we’re not. If somebody was like, “We want you to be in the movie where The X-Men punch you in the face,” I’d be like, done and done.
When I talked to Neil Gaiman last year, he discussed the horrible Sandman movie that Jon Peters wanted to make. And believe it or not, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but Peters tried to put a giant spider into Sandman as well.
He was obsessed! He finally got his giant spider into Wild Wild West, right? But his fascination with it was always tied to two things. One was classic King Kong in black and white because he was like, “That scene when the doors open up and they reveal Kong for the first time, that was my whole childhood. I thought that was amazing.” And the other part of it was he had watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel about spiders and how they’re the fiercest killers in the insect kingdom. He was like, “Why can’t we put that to work against Superman?” So as happy as I am, I would die to know what Jon Peters thinks about that scene. People must be blowing his phone up as much as I’m getting blown up, going like, “Dude, they did it!”
Did you ever get any blowback from Jon Peters for telling that story?
He never reached out to me and was like, “You piece of shit.” But I saw him be like, “Oh, I never said that I never want to see Superman in the outfit.” And that’s bullshit. He said all those things. But when the late, great Jon Schnepp made the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?, he completely validated that story for me and the public. Because Peters is in the movie. And after that documentary came out, people were like, “You weren’t lying.” That dude is that guy. Like, Jon Peters literally tries to wrestle somebody working for him in that documentary.
You had a great solution to the spider thing. You put it in the screenplay as a “Thanagarian Snare Beast.”
That was Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who was running Warner Bros. in those days. He pulls me into his office one day after I speak with Jon Peters, and he goes, “Is he still talking about that fucking spider?” And I was like, “Yeah, he fucking wants to put a giant spider in the third act.” And Lorenzo is just like, “Look, just do me a favor, call it anything but a spider.” And I was like “Thanagarian Snare Beast?” And he goes, “Perfect. Just don’t call it a fucking spider.” And so that’s where the name came from.
The other thing is Nicolas Cage looks good in the suit in The Flash. It could’ve worked.
I’ve been reading a bunch of people on Twitter going, like, “When that scene happened, the audience erupted.” So if I’m Warner Bros., I’m going, like, “Fuck it. There’s a multiverse, man. Let’s give Nic Cage a Superman movie.” You don’t have to be the only Superman, but why not? We’ve got multiple Batmans. I mean, shit, 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.
You’re doing a reading of your Superman Lives screenplay at your movie theater for your birthday on July 29th. Did you invite Nic?
Some people have been asking me about that. I don’t know Nic Cage. And if I’m ever gonna reach out to Nic Cage, it’s gonna be like, “Yo, be in the Tusk sequel.” Because he was a big fan of Tusk.
So you’re saving that favor for something that actually matters?
[Laughs] I’m not gonna call in that favor and to be like, you want to read the Superman part at the movie theater? I’ll have Jason Mewes do it, and it’ll work just as well.
The most unexpected reference to your Jon Peters thing was in Licorice Pizza, where Paul Thomas Anderson has Bradley Cooper as Peters use the line about being “from the streets,” which is straight from your story.
I don’t know Paul well enough to reach out and be like, “Bro, is that really from my thing?” I just assumed that that is a total Peters-ism and maybe he says it to everybody. But then I was watching Licorice Pizza with my wife. And you know, Jennifer goes as far back with me as working with Peters on Superman. And Bradley Cooper says that and my wife looked at me, and I’ll be honest with you, she looked at me with a sense of respect that I don’t think she’s ever looked at me with before. She was like, “Holy shit. You’re referenced in an actual good filmmaker’s movie.” [Laughs]
I know you’ve got a Jay and Silent Bob-themed cruise coming up next February. That’s the first time you’ve ever done something like that, right?
Yeah, and you better believe we’ll be reading the Superman script on the fucking cruise as well. And I can get Jason Lee to read as Superman, because he’ll be on the cruise as well. A lot of people were like, “Oh my God, you’re gonna be trapped with 3,000 fans on a boat.” And I’m like, “That’s my dream. There’s nothing bad about that. That’s gonna be amazing. Three thousand like-minded individuals that I share the same opinion with? That’s cool by me.”
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