Lionsgate’s has just released the red band trailer for the action-comedyThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. We seeNicolas Cagetaking a schvitz with his palNeil Patrick Harris, as Harris tries to convince a cash-strapped Cage to take a gig paying $1 million to attend a powerful and rich superfan’s birthday party. Reluctantly, he accepts his predicament and off he goes!
The setup for the film sees Nicolas Cage starring as… Nick Cage in the action-comedyThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, the fictionalized version of Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan (Pedro Pascal). Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative (Tiffany Haddish) and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones. With a career built for this very moment, the seminal award-winning actor must take on the role of a lifetime: Nicolas Cage.
This summer Tiffany Haddish shared withInsiderabout working with and getting advice from the legend. She had her own method to create spontaneity in herThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talentperformance by just concentrating on her role. Cage proved her wrong with his technique. “He knew everything about the movie; every single thing that was going on. Sometimes I do movies and I just want to know my character and then be surprised by everything else…I always felt in that surprise there may be some magic that comes from spontaneity. But after working with him, I realized I should know everything and then in my mind find room for surprises.”
She also shared an intimate story with Cage on her first unique sexual experience watchingFace/Off. “And you may have heard that story I told about my connection with Nicolas Cage. Right. So once I told him the story then I fell right into things and got comfortable. And later in the day, he was like, “In the future when you got something you want to tell somebody just tell them.” And I was like, “I didn’t know what type of crazy you were!” Oh, to have been on the set of that movie!
Speaking withIndiewire, Cage wants to assure the audience, “It’s a stylized version of me, and the fact I even have to refer to myself in the third person makes me extremely uncomfortable,” Cage said of the project previously. “There are many scenes in the movie where modern or contemporary - here we go - ‘Nic Cage’ and then young ‘Nic Cage’ are colliding and arguing and battling it out. It’s an acrobatic approach to acting. I’m probably going to have to look at a couple of the movies from the past again, because I think we’re gonna have to re-enact some of those sequences. It’s like walking through aCabinet of Dr. Caligariversion ofCon AirandFace / Off.”
Starring alongside Nicolas Cage will bePedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Jacob Scipio, Lily Sheen, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tiffany Haddish. The film was directed by Tom Gormican and written by Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten. Lionsgate’sThe Unbearable Weight of Massive Talentpremieres theatrically on July 09, 2025.
