Nicolas Cage makes a lot of films, and let’s face it, most of them are awful. At one stage in his career, the 55 year-old was one of the biggest movie stars in the world with a steady stream of critical and commercial hits under his belt, but in the last decade, the actor seems to sign on to virtually every project that comes his way, the overwhelming majority of which are bargain-basement genre flicks.
Every once in a while though, Cage reminds us of why he’s often referred to as one of the greatest actors of his generation with performances like the one he gave in 2018’s Mandy, but more often than not his unique style ends up being the subject of countless internet memes.
Now, the Academy Award winner has just signed on to his latest project, and based on the synopsis alone, it sounds like the most Nicolas Cage thing that Nicolas Cage will ever do. Written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent sees Cage as a fictionalized version of himself, desperate to land a role in a new Quentin Tarantino movie. If that wasn’t enough, The Hollywood Reporter added that “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.”
If you think that sounds crazy on its own, the story also sees a debt-ridden Cage forced to appear at the birthday party of a Mexican billionaire who’s a huge fan of the actor’s work, and wants to show him a script that he’s been working on. These scenes will also reportedly feature Cage doing read-throughs of his previous hits like Face/Off and Gone in 60 Seconds.
But wait, there’s more. Here’s the synopsis that proves just how wild The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is going to get:
“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.”
So Nicolas Cage will be playing a meta version of himself as a debt-ridden former A-lister who now does birthday party appearances, before becoming involved with Mexican drug cartels and the CIA to in order to save his estranged family. Based on that logline alone, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent has got to be one of the must-see movies of 2021.
