Actor Nicolas Cage dismissed the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as a “well-funded and glorified WWE” due to its seemingly endless stream of sequels, reboots, and rematches.
The Oscar winner, who has been enjoying an impressive comeback in recent years, expressed his thoughts about the sprawling Marvel universe during a recent conversation at Fan Expo Dallas.
“I do say this with love,” said Cage at the convention. “When I see these 50-plus and otherwise intelligent and remarkably gifted thespians putting on these ridiculous outfits and getting ready for the fight — let’s face it, it’s all cutting to the fight — it’s hard for me not to be reminded that the MCU is becoming a well-funded and glorified WWE.”
While Cage did not participate in the MCU, his career has certainly waded into superhero fare with titles like Ghost Rider and the recent Spider-Noir on Amazon, which was canceled after just one season. He was also famously cast to play Superman in Tim Burton’s ill-fated Superman Lives in the 1990s, which the acclaimed 2015 documentary The Death of Superman Lives chronicled to great effect.
The upcoming Avengers: Doomsday will attempt to rejuvenate the MCU roughly seven years after the series concluded with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Actor Alan Cumming, who played Nightcrawler in the original X-Men series, recently told Variety that he couldn’t understand the film’s story when shooting his scenes.
“To be honest, I don’t fully understand the plot,” he said, adding that he was not even given a full screenplay.
“There was a bit when we were shooting a scene, and it was one of the rare scenes when I was actually on the backlot and not in front of a blue screen,” Cumming said. “And this man came and said, ‘So right now Alan, these giant robots are blah blah,’ and started to tell me the thing, and I was like, ‘You know what, thank you so much, but just tell me where I point my, whatever I point. And I’ll do that. Really, I just know I’m here to run around.’”