It can’t get any more Nicolas Cage than this! The Hollywood Reporter says that Lionsgate is in final negotiations to pick up the drama Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which would star Nicolas Cage as… Nicolas Cage.
The meta movie project, which would reference films like Leaving Las Vegas, Face/Off, Gone in 60 Seconds and more, has a script by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, with Gormican attached to direct.
The trade describes Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent as follows:
“Cage is desperate to get a role in a new Tarantino movie while also dealing with a strained relationship with his teenage daughter. He also occasionally talks to an egotistical 1990s version of himself who rides him for making too many crappy movies and for not being a star anymore.
“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 U.S. 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.”
Kevin Turen (Waves, Euphoria) would produce with Cage and his Saturn Films banner along with Mike Nilon.
