See The Actors Chosen To Play Nicolas Cage In Massive Talent If Nic Cage Had Refused To Play Himself
Would they have ever made The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent if Nicolas Cage himself had turned down the role? Yes, and they had a backup plan.
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Would they have ever made The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent if Nicolas Cage himself had turned down the role? The actor plays a fictional version of himself in the hit movie. He mimics his own past roles, references a ton of great moments from his cinematic history, and generally has sense of humor about his public persona. While many of us might expect that this movie wouldn’t happen without the man himself, apparently, that isn’t the case.
“Christian Bale or Daniel Day-Lewis in full prosthetics,” screenwriter Tom Gormican told Collider during a recent interview. While they were writing the script, they had no idea if Nicolas Cage would agree. In fact, according to the actor himself, he turned it down several times. He told The Hollywood Reporter that he wanted no part of it until he got a letter from Tom Gormican. “[T]hen I thought, “OK, he’s not just trying to mock so-called Nick Cage; there is a real interest in some of the earlier work.” Before he agreed though, these are the two iconic actors the writers had as their backup plan.
Of course, Christian Bale and Daniel Day-Lewis are legendary actors with major careers in Hollywood, so they’re probably used to being first choice for most projects they’ve been involved with in recent years. For this movie though, where Nicolas Cage plays a version of himself, it’s clear that audiences would have experienced something very different in the theater. There are scenes in The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent where Nicolas Cage himself wears prosthetics, so to have Christian Bale or Daniel Day-Lewis wearing prosthetics to look like alternate versions of Cage would have gone even further into the strange for this one.
How is The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent doing? With a budget of $30 million, the opening weekend for the new Nicolas Cage movie brought in $7 million. It’s likely that Lionsgate was hoping for a lot more than that with the new movie. Hopefully, good reviews will lead to higher ticket sales, because fans and critics are loving this one. Rotten Tomatoes has an audience score at 87% and critics have it at 88%. The movie co-stars Pedro Pascal, Lily Sheen, Tiffany Haddish, Neil Patrick Harris, and more.
The hilarious new movie mainly follows the growing relationship between a fictionalized Nicolas Cage and a wealthy man played by Pedro Pascal. In the movie, Cage’s career is seen as failing. He decides to take an offer to visit with Pascal for $1 million. When he does, their relationship leads them down a wild path that soon turns the movie into a comedy and thriller. At the same time that Cage’s career seems to be flailing, his relationship with his daughter is struggling as well.
While the fictional Nicolas Cage loves his daughter, he’s trying too hard, and spends too much time talking about his own career and interests and not enough time realizing she’s her own person. While the actor accepted this part of the movie as part of the fictional story, he made one thing clear during his press tour: his family always comes first. He told PEOPLE, “First and foremost… there’s no version of Nic Cage in reality that doesn’t want to spend time with his children.” He went on to explain that in the past, he had turned down roles in major franchises like The Matrix and Lord Of The Rings because he didn’t want to be filming on location away from his family for years at a time. In real life, Nicolas Cage makes very different choices when it comes to his career.
Of course, this is proven by his diverse and interesting acting credits so far. The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent references many of these films. The movie is now playing in theaters everywhere.
