Despite complaints about the CGI, Nicolas Cage’s Man of Steel cameo was special to DC fans because it finally allowed them to see the venerable actor version of Superman on the big screen. Cage’s “Superman Lives,” which was to be directed by Tim Burton, was canceled early in its production in 1998.

But while the shuttered DC film marked a disappointing setback in Cage’s prolific career, he told Deadline that he was still happy to see his version of the famed DC character in “The Flash.” More than 20 years after the project was shelved, he was thrilled that director Andy Muschietti shined a light on all the work that he, Burton, and their collaborators put into the look of the character for “Superman Lives.”

“I still wanted to see [costume designer] Colleen Atwood’s suit, which I maintain is a beautiful suit, and 50% of that [character] was my design,” Cage told Deadline. “I wanted Superman to have the long, kind of black Samurai hair and a vulnerable feeling — almost no blinking, a stillness in his eyes. And so, it was 50/50. It was Tim and myself, we had designed something, and it never came to light, so when I saw it moving, I was very happy that Andy Muschietti wanted me to do it.”