The place where you ever hear a single soul saying that he isn’t into a Nic Cage film is surely not heaven, since liars are not allowed to be there. Over the past half-decade, Cage has been serving us incredible films at a breath-taking rate – he had hits with the likes of Mandy, Color out of Space, Willy’s Wonderland, and Pig, the latter of which is arguably one of the year’s best. But today, we are going into an exciting close look at The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which he portrays a neurotic version of himself who is short on cash and is hired by a billionaire to attend his birthday party.
Now, the film’s distributor, Lionsgate, has released a much-anticipated first-look trailer – and yeah, it’s as Nic Cage-y as any of us could have imagined. We receive our first indication regarding the film’s precipitating occurrence during a bathhouse chat between him and Neil Patrick Harris, who is also presumably portraying himself: Cage owes $600,000 to an L.A. hotel where he’s been staying for over a year, and big-budget assignments are hard to come by. So, when he is given a million dollars to attend a rich playboy’s birthday party (played by Pedro Pascal), he unwillingly accepts – and the outcome is a gem of B-movie comedy schlock. Who is John Malkovich huh?
In September, we had a conversation with Cage himself about the film, in which he explained why he won’t be seeing it, calling it “too much of a wacko trip,” and implying that the movie adaptation of Cage is director Tom Gormican‘s “very neurotic, anxiety-ridden” version of him. As he puts it:
"I’m told it’s a good movie. My manager, Mike Nilon, who is also a producer on it, looked at it. He was very happy. I’m told the audience loved the movie. But it’s just too much of a whacked-out trip for me to go to a movie theater and watch me play [Gormican]’s highly-neurotic, anxiety-ridden version of me. Because he kept pushing me in that direction. I said 'Tom, that’s not really me. I’m really [made of] quiet, meditative, thoughtful moments. I’m not this neurotic, high-strung, anxiety-ridden guy all the time.' But he said, 'well, neurotic Cage is the best Cage.' I said, 'okay, okay. Let’s go, man. I’ll do what you want.' I won’t see it. But I do hope you enjoy it."
Don’t be missed out on the trailer below. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent also stars Tiffany Hadish, Sharon Horgan, and Neil Patrick Harris. The film is set to be released in cinemas on April 22nd.
