Nicolas Cage to play Nicolas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Just when audiences didn’t think Nicolas Cage could get anymore extreme, it turns out he’s about to go full Nicolas Cage as he is set to play a meta version of himself in the upcoming drama The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which has also been picked up by Lionsgate, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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Lionsgate won the rights to the project in a heated auction that also saw HBO Max and Paramount Pictures fighting hard to acquire the film, which sources are also saying could see the 55-year-old actor earn a paycheck on the same level of his career highs Con Air and the National Treasure franchise.

The film, written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten and set to be directed by Gormican, will see Cage portray a version of himself desperate to get a role in a new Tarantino movie while also struggling with a strained relationship with his teenage daughter. As he makes his way through life, he also talks to an egotistical version of himself from the ’90s who railroads him for making bad movies and not being the same star he was at the time, now dealing with a mountain of death and making an appearance at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire that is a huge fan.

While bonding with the man, who hopes to show Cage a script he’s been working on, the actor learns from the CIA that the billionaire is actually a drug cartel kingpin who has kidnapped the daughter of a presidential nominee and is recruited to get intelligence. The predicament gets worse when the billionaire brings Cage’s daughter and ex-wife for a reconciliation and he must take on the role of a lifetime to save their lives.

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The script is set to include nods to various Cage works including Leaving Las Vegas, Face-Off and Gone in 60 Seconds and reportedly has tones of Adaptation, which Cage starred in, as well as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s JCVD and the Hollywood caper Get Shorty.

Interestingly enough, the script by the That Awkward Moment writer/director and Ghosted creator was not supposed to be viewed by any buyers as it was a sample script to make a change in their careers, but after interest was shown in the script itself, they chose to go for it. The two sent the script to Cage with a letter from Gormican pleading their case for the film as a love letter versus a critique and the actor signed on in recent weeks.

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