Is This Nicolas Cage Movie Plot Real or Fake?
Nicolas Cage has owned two pet king cobras, accidentally purchased a stolen dinosaur skull, and named his son Kal-El, after Superman. His onscreen life is also singularly bonkers. He once played a guy who gets a full transplant of his mortal enemy’s face after that guy got a transplant of his face. He once played a guy who believes he’s transformed into a vampire, and another guy who actually does transform into a flaming skeleton. He once stole the fucking Declaration of Independence. He is constantly, constantly screaming.
The last few months alone have brought announcements of upcoming projects that contain more chaotic energy than most other actors see in their entire careers. They’re so quintessentially Nic Cage, they’re almost too good to be true. So see if you can guess which of these projects are real and which ones we just wish we could get a studio behind.
1. Cage plays a washed-up film star, also named Nicolas Cage, who makes a paid appearance at a Mexican billionaire’s birthday party in an attempt to get out of crippling debt. The billionaire turns out to be a drug cartel kingpin and wannabe screenwriter who drags Cage’s estranged teenage daughter and ex-wife into danger. The CIA enlists Cage to take him down using skills he’s acquired in previous action movies.
REAL. That mind-bendingly meta movie would be The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which Cage is set to play a “creatively unfulfilled” version of himself.
2. Cage plays a grumpy old hermit who lives undisturbed in the woods of upstate New York. Until the day some hikers steal his denim jacket airbrushed with a pack of wolves to resell at their Williamsburg thrift store at a 600 percent markup. So he teams up with an actual pack of wolves to get his jacket back and exact swift and merciless revenge.
FAKE. Though Cage does have an incredible wolf jacket.
3. Cage plays a truffle hunter who lives in complete solitude in the Oregon wilderness, with only his beautiful and cherished foraging pig to keep him company. But when she’s kidnapped, he’s forced to go into the big city (Portland) to confront his past and bring her home.
REAL. And it’s just called Pig. Who will be playing the eponymous pig has yet to be announced.
4. Every six years, the fate of Earth is left in the hands of an ancient order of jiu jitsu fighters, who must face off against an alien invader. Cage plays a veteran jiu jitsu fighter who teams up with a younger fighter to conquer the alien once and for all. And the alien is named Brax.
REAL. Cage will be pummeling, and presumably screaming at, aliens in the sci-fi comic book adaptation Jiu Jitsu.
5. Cage plays a drifter lured into a job as a custodian at a condemned amusement park. When he gets trapped there overnight, he discovers that the animatronic characters come to life—and they’re evil. He must defeat them, or die.
REAL. Cage will be pummeling, and definitely screaming at, demonic animatronic amusement park characters in Wally’s Wonderland.
6. Cage plays an international terrorist who wakes up from a coma to discover that his FBI agent enemy has stolen his butt. Assless and enraged, he forces the doctor who did the transplant procedure to give him the FBI agent’s butt instead, then takes off to destroy him for good.
FAKE. Face/Off is getting a reboot but, tragically, not a re-butt.
6. Thirty years after the original Moonstruck, Nicholas Cage and Cher reprise their roles as Ronny Cammareri and Loretta Castorini. The two are struggling to keep their marriage together and their Brooklyn Heights bakery afloat, as greedy developers are circling to turn it into a combination Chase Bank/dog-friendly matcha bar. Also, Ronny has since lost his other hand in another bread machine accident.
FAKE. But the people demand this sequel.
7. Cage plays an infamous criminal who is hauled in and strapped with grenades that will go off if he doesn’t comply with a job for the authorities: save the kidnapped governor’s daughter from her kidnappers … who are ghosts.
REAL. Cage will wear “a skintight black leather jumpsuit with grenades attached to different body parts” in Prisoners of the Ghostland. He also said it “might be the wildest movie I’ve ever made, and that’s saying something.” God help us all.
Originally Appeared on GQ
