Nicolas Cage is one of a kind.
Which explains why the Oscar-winning national treasure is in talks to play a version of himself in a meta new movie, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” according to The Hollywood Reporter Friday.
In the film, Cage the character is contending with personal drama (his teen daughter with whom he’s not particularly close and a ton of financial debt) and professional drama, as he strives to land Quentin Tarantino’s new movie.
And if Cage’s life hadn’t become enough of a Venn diagram, the “Leaving Las Vegas” star has a habit of conversing with a 1990s Cage who gets on the current Cage’s case for his choosing predominantly low-budget, under the radar films instead of his older critical hits.
The bonkers storyline also involves the U.S. recruiting Cage to fetch intel on a member of a drug cartel who abducted a Mexican politician’s daughter because of course Cage becomes acquainted with the man.
The film isn’t entirely unlike Cage’s role in 2002’s “Adaptation” either — in which he played both the film’s screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, and Kaufman’s fictional identical twin brother – and 2014’s “Birdman,” which featured Michael Keaton as a former movie star known for playing a superhero, just as he himself once played Batman and then took on lesser-known roles .
Cage could (potentially, maybe…?) return to the “National Treasure” films and the role of Ben Gates – the treasure hunter and history obsessive who tracks down lost artifacts thought to be legendary.
Cage told the Daily News on Halloween that he loves the films and the role but, “Your guess is as good. It’d be a lot of fun to do another one. I think there’s an audience for it.”
