After DC’s newly released The Flash landed the makers in hot water for the CGI portrayal of deceased actors who played iconic roles from DC history, filmmaker Kevin Smith weighed in on the matter as well.
While Smith is known for his candid nature, it has occasionally landed him in hot water. One noteworthy controversy emerged in 2010 when he was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight on the grounds of being “too big for his seat”. Smith took to Twitter to express his outrage, sparking a widespread backlash against the airline. Ultimately, Southwest issued an apology and revised its policies, allowing Smith to have the last laugh.
Kevin Smith is all in favor of the cameos; says it is more homage than insult
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Kevin Smith defended the makers of DC’s The Flash for the CGI resuscitation of Christopher Reeve as Superman (from Superman 1978 film) and Adam West‘s Batman (from Batman, 1966).
“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 f***ing dead, you can literally do anything to my image or to Silent Bob in a movie. Anything you want. You could stick me in f***ing p*rn, dude.”
Smith’s history of working with Tim Burton on an unreleased project about the ‘last son of Krypton’
Smith has also previously commented on The Flash‘s CGI-enabled cameos. He spoke of his reaction to finding that the DC blockbuster pays homage to Superman Lives, a film that was never released that he and Tim Burton collaborated on in the mid-1990s and was supposed to feature Nicolas Cage in the titular role.
“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 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.”
Though Smith has spoken in favor of the controversial CGI cameos of the late actors, fans and critics worldwide are still skeptical of the concept altogether.
Source: Rolling Stone
