Nicolas Cage Deserves an MCU Role For His Pure Dedication to a Marvel Comicbook Superhero
Nicolas Cage has not officially joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which might sound surprising considering how Marvel has already recruited nearly everybody.
Despite Cage once playing Ghost Rider (a Marvel-owned character), no more plans exist to make a movie version of the character with him in it.
Nevertheless, some fans still think Cage deserves to be in the MCU for a different reason. It falls on one personal thing about him that proves he really is a Marvel fan.
Stranger things have happened as everyone knows. At this point, Cage may be the lone holdout not joining the MCU when he really might be perfect playing someone else.
Nicolas Cage’s name twist
As most fans know, Cage is not the real last name of Nicolas Cage. He was born Nicolas Kim Coppola, with that last name being familiar to lovers of classic film. Yes, he is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, something mostly known by the public.
What some people may not know is the last name “Cage” came from an unexpected source. To help differentiate himself from the Coppola name, Cage took from Marvel Comics rather than take a random name out of a phone book.
In this Hollywood story, it turns out an actor was not too proud to steal from a famous Marvel character. Cage ultimately took his last name from Luke Cage, one of the grittiest characters in Marvel’s history.
Nicolas Cage had a huge comic book collection
According to The Atlantic, Cage not only found Luke Cage influential, but he had a huge comic book collection he later sold. That personal collection sold for $2.1 million in 2011, says The Hollywood Reporter.
No wonder Cage has taken on so many roles indicative of those comic book characters. A lot of fans still have “what if” moments about him playing Ghost Rider, albeit the two movies made being panned.
Perhaps the Ghost Rider movies are why the MCU has not hired Cage…yet. No one says he has to play Ghost Rider again. Many other characters exist he could play to outlandish effect, particularly some of the most nefarious villains yet to come in future phases.
One thing for sure is his fascination with Luke Cage integrated into his personality for many roles. Looking back at Cage’s movies, one can see a little of Luke Cage through his personality, albeit never being able to play him directly.
Will the MCU still hire him to play someone else?
Plenty of time exists for the MCU to consider Cage down the line. In another decade, they may recruit half of Hollywood over to their side based on higher paychecks and increasingly complex plots.
On places like Reddit, fans once wondered (back in 2015) what kind of MCU villains he could realistically play. Some fans were a bit ambivalent about him even joining the MCU because of how bad some people thought the Ghost Rider movies were.
At the same time, some thought he could really kill playing someone like Maximus the Mad, a character already depicted by Iwan Rheon on the Inhumans TV series. A cinematic version in the MCU would give more opportunity for Cage to chew the scenery as he always does.
