Movies

Nicolas Cage Really Wants to Play Egghead in a BATMAN Movie

by Eric Diaz
Mar 15 2022 • 11:40 AM

With Matt Reeves’ The Batman blowing up the box office, thoughts have already turned to the inevitable sequel. And of course, folks are already pondering which villains may appear next. Will we see Two-Face? Poison Ivy? Maybe the Court of Owls? Well, we know of one comic book fan who has an idea for a deep-cut rogue he’d like to see in the sequel. And, he’d really love to play him too. The character in question is Egghead. And the fan who wants to play him? None other than Nicolas Cage.

While interviewed at SXSW,  Cage dropped a little bit of information about just how much he wants to play an “absolutely terrifying” version of the classic Batman rogue. You can see Cage talk about his Egghead and Batman aspirations down below:

Now, a lot of you might be wondering “who the heck is Egghead?” And that’s because he was one of several villains created for the Batman ’66 television show. But Hollywood legend Vincent Price played Egghead, which made him a little more special than the rest of the “Made for TV” baddies on the series. More memorable than Bookworm or Louie the Lilac, in any case.

In the Batman series, Egghead believed himself the smartest man in the world, as he assumed his larger “egg-shaped” cranium held a bigger brain. So, naturally, he became a master criminal who used egg-shaped weapons and made egg-related puns. As one does. We’re not sure what a terrifying version of Batman‘s Egghead looks like, but we trust Nicolas Cage could deliver that. He says he has a concept ready to go, after all.

(L) Nicolas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (R) Vincent Price as Egghead in Batman '66.
Lionsgate / Warner Bros.

Nicolas Cage is a huge comics fan, with a legendary comic book collection. But after being Ghost Rider (and nearly being Superman) he’s never appeared in a live-action DC property. We suppose Big Daddy, his pseudo-Batman character in Kick-Ass, almost counts as a DC character. While we’re not sure Matt Reeves has a “grounded” take on old Egghead, we hope he at least hears Nicolas Cage’s Batman pitch. Egghead never received a Harley Quinn-like transition from TV to comics, but maybe an unhinged Cage performance could change that. And if it doesn’t happen, there’s always a LEGO Batman sequel, right?