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In one of Hollywood’s most famous “What if?” scenarios of the modern superhero movie-led era, Nicolas Cage was once cast to play Superman in Tim Burton’s abandoned Superman Lives project. The Mandy actor has since voiced the last son of Krypton in the animated Teen Titans Go! to the Movies and has even talked publicly about some of the comic book villains he would want to play, including DC Comics’ Joker and Marvel’s Doctor Doom. Now we can add another iconic baddie to that last.

As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the subject of revisiting the world of Superman came up when a Guardian reporter asked Cage about the matter. “Oh, I think my Superman days are long gone,” he said of a fan campaign to make him the next Kal-El, in light of Henry Cavill’s alleged exit from the DCEU at Warner Bros. Pictures. When the reporter broached the possibility of Cage playing a villain instead, like Lex Luthor, however, the actor seemed to be all for it.

“Oh, that would be great!” he exclaimed. “I’d make a great Lex Luthor.”

To be fair, Cage’s Castor Troy character in the cinematic classic Face/Off remains one of the best villains of the past few decades. Tone down the violence just a little bit and shave off the rest of the hair and eureka! We’ve got a brilliant, angry and bitter human businessman capable of besting a seemingly all-powerful alien in tights.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)