Why Nicolas Cage Turned Down Spider-Man's Green Goblin Role
Nicolas Cage may not have played Green Goblin, but he was still fated to join Marvel's wall-crawling mythos in 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Vedrse.
Somewhere, in the web-strung Spider-Verse, Nicolas Cage played Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.
"I liked the idea of Sam Raimi," the actor recalled during an interview with Variety "because of Evil Dead 1 and 2, and I wanted to work with him."
He was offered the role not long after his notorious Superman Lives project (from writer Kevin Smith and director Tim Burton) fell apart, but turned it down. This allowed Willem Dafoe to assume the mantle of Norman Osborn, which, if we're being honest, was the best outcome anyone could have hoped for.
Still, why decline a chance to step onto the glider of Peter Parker's greatest nemesis? Well, the answer is pretty simple.
Why did Nicolas Cage turn down Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man?
Cage preferred to work with Spike Jonze on 2002's metafictional Adaptation, which posed a greater challenge of playing two different characters: screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald Kaufman.
He compared it to previous rejection of Dumb and Dumber in favor of Leaving Las Vegas.
"Both those decisions were the right ones for me," Cage explained, "and I’m happy with those results."
Cage's time in the superhero spotlight finally arrived in 2007's Ghost Rider, which opened the floodgates for other comic book-inspired projects like Astro Boy (2009), Kick-Ass (2010) and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011).
He finally got to join Spider-Man's wall-crawling mythos via 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, where he voiced Spider-Man Noir. The hardboiled hero made the jump to live-action in the Spider-Noir TV series (now streaming on Prime Video).
"I wasn’t necessarily interested in playing a superhero, per se," Cage told Variety. "I was interested in seeing if I could channel old-style black-and-white film acting and collide it with Spider-Man. That was the danger and the excitement."
Set in an alternate version of 1930s New York, the show centers on a cynical, alcoholic private investigator Ben Reilly (Cage), who retired from his life as a vigilante known as The Spider after losing the love of his life. Half a decade later, Reilly has no choice but to swing back into the arachnoid saddle as the city finds itself caught in a struggle between the corrupt Mayor Alfred Morris (Michael Kostroff), ruthless crime-lord Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) and his super-powered henchmen.
"I wanted to try to create an essence of some of my favorite old world actors because I wanted to embody that style—Bogart, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson—and designed my performance to fit within the black-and-white format, just as Darran Tiernan was doing with the photography and Trayce Field was doing with the wardrobe," the actor said. "I wanted all of that to coalesce so when you watch the black-and-white format of Spider-Noir, you really feel like you’re being transported to another time."
