Buena Vista/Hemdale Film CorporationThe Nicolas Cage satire in which Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage has an official release date.
Cage is a National Treasure – ever since gracing the world with Face/Off’s hallelujah scene, his madcap lunacy has been a firm favourite of movie-goers everywhere.
Now, the stars have aligned. The Con Air superstar is set to play himself, in a film about himself. It’s basically a dream come true.
RLJE FilmsCage’s next film, a Lovecraftian trip titled Color Out of Space, is due to be released at the end of February. However, this is par for the course for Cage. It’s the film after this we’re really excited about.
Lionsgate beat out other distributors – such as HBO Max and Paramount – for the film, which has a script by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, with Gormican attached to direct, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
We now know when to expect the soon-to-be Cage on Cage masterpiece: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent will hit cinemas in the US and UK on March 19, 2021.
The film will see Cage play a fictionalised version of himself who’s ‘desperate to get a role in a new Quentin Tarantino movie, while also dealing with a strained relationship with his teenage daughter’, as well as an ‘egotistical 1990s version of himself who rides him for making too many crappy movies and for not being a star anymore’.
Warner Bros.The film seems to then go in even more bizarre directions:
The Cage character is also under a mountain of debt and finds himself forced to make an appearance at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire who happens to be a fan of Cage’s work and secretly hopes to show him a script on which he’s been working.
While he bonds with the man, Cage is informed by the CIA that the billionaire is actually a drug cartel kingpin who has kidnapped the daughter of a Mexican presidential nominee and is recruited by the US government to get intelligence.
The situation spirals even more dramatically when the Mexican brings over Cage’s daughter and his ex-wife for a reconciliation, and when their lives are on the line, Cage takes on the role of a lifetime.
There will be a few nods to a number of films in Cage’s oeuvre, such as Leaving Las Vegas and Gone In 60 Seconds. It sounds like the bold work of art we need right now, like a mix of Adaptation, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s meta JCVD, John Travolta’s showbiz comedy Get Shorty, and even a dose of Danny Trejo’s Machete thrown in.
Buena Vista PicturesIt’ll have some relatively big hitters to compete with: Tomb Raider 2 and a new Paranormal Activity movie are set for the same date.
However, I know what film I’ll be choosing: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent hits cinemas on March 19, 2021.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.