The story
Founded by Nicolas Cage in 2000, in Los Angeles.1
1981–1988: Early work and breakthrough
Cage made his acting debut in the 1981 television pilot The Best of Times, which was never picked up by ABC. His film debut followed in 1982, with a minor role as an unnamed co-worker of Judge Reinhold's character in the coming-of-age film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, having originally auditioned for Reinhold's part. His experience on the film was marred by cast members endlessly quoting his uncle's films, which inspired him to change his name. Cage's first starring role came opposite Deborah Foreman in the romantic comedy Valley Girl (1983), in which he played a punk who falls in love with the titular valley girl, a plot loosely inspired by Romeo and Juliet. The film was a modest box office success and has been branded a cult classic. He auditioned for the role of Dallas Winston in his uncle's film The Outsiders, based on S.E. Hinton's novel, but lost to Matt Dillon. Cage, however, would co-star in Coppola's adaptation of another Hinton novel, Rumble Fish, in that year.
In 1984, Cage appeared in three period films, none of which fared well at the box office. In the drama, Racing with the Moon (1984), Cage featured opposite Sean Penn as friends who are awaiting deployment to the United States Marine Corps. In Coppola's crime drama The Cotton Club he portrayed a fictionalized version of mob hitman Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, earning praise from critic Paul Attanasio for "artfully [using] his few moments to sketch a brawny, violent thug." His final release of the year was Alan Parker's drama Birdy, in which he starred with Matthew Modine. Cage lost weight for the role and had two of his front teeth pulled out to appear disfigured. Despite massively underperforming at the box office, the film, and Cage and Modine's performances, received positive reviews, with The New York Times critic Janet Maslin writing, "Mr. Cage very sympathetically captures Al's urgency and frustration. Together, these actors work miracles with what might have been unplayable."
In 1986, Cage starred in the little-seen Canadian sports drama The Boy in Blue and his uncle's fantasy comedy Peggy Sue Got Married as the husband to Kathleen Turner's character. He then starred in the Coen brothers' crime comedy Raising Arizona (1987) as a dim-witted ex-con. Cage's biggest breakthrough came in 1987 with the romantic comedy Moonstruck, in which he starred alongside Cher as a hot-tempered baker. The film was a hit with critics and audiences alike, earning Cage a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy In his retrospective review, Roger Ebert wrote that he felt Cage's performance was worthy of an Oscar.
1989–1994: Career slump
In 1989, Cage starred in the black comedy Vampire's Kiss as a man who falls in love with a vampire and soon begins to believe himself as a vampire. The film was a major box office flop but has developed a cult following largely due to Cage's surrealistic and over-the-top performance appearing in internet memes. Critic Vincent Canby felt the film was "dominated and destroyed by Mr. Cage's chaotic, self-indulgent performance." After filming the Italian drama Time to Kill (1989) in Zimbabwe, he starred in David Lynch's romantic crime film Wild at Heart (1990) with Laura Dern. Cage was drawn to the project because he was "always attracted to those passionate, almost unbridled romantic characters" and it allowed him to impersonate one of his heroes, Elvis Presley, in scenes in which he sang. Wild at Heart received mixed reviews upon release, despite controversially winning the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Cage would reunite with Lynch and Dern for the avant-garde concert performance Industrial Symphony No. 1.
Also in 1990, he starred as a helicopter pilot in the action film Fire Birds, which was panned by critics and negatively compared to Top Gun (1986). Cage's next film, the erotic thriller Zandalee (1991), was released direct-to-video in the United States, where it did not receive a theatrical release. His "goofy 'everyman'" performance in the romantic comedy Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) garnered some positive critical notices, including from Roger Ebert, who defended Cage amidst some critics finding his acting "excessive" and earned Cage his second Golden Globe nomination. He hosted an episode of the variety show Saturday Night Live to promote the film, his only time hosting the show.
None of Cage's three films in 1993—Deadfall (directed by his brother Christopher), Amos & Andrew and Red Rock West—performed well at the box office. The comedy Guarding Tess (1994) paired Cage with Shirley MacLaine as a Secret Service agent protecting a former First Lady; however, it was dismissed as being derivative by some critics. He next starred alongside Bridget Fonda in the romantic comedy It Could Happen to You as a cash-strapped police officer who offers to share his lottery winnings with a waitress and then the much-criticized box office flop Christmas comedy Trapped in Paradise with the Saturday Night Live actors Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey. According to Lovitz, Cage directed portions of the film because its director, George Gallo, offered little direction.
1995–2003: Critical success and action star
Cage's performance as a psychopathic criminal kingpin in the crime film Kiss of Death (1995) was seen by many critics as the film's strong point, but his most acclaimed performance yet came in the drama Leaving Las Vegas as an alcoholic screenwriter who falls in love with a prostitute in Las Vegas. The role won Cage the Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. To prepare for the part, Cage binge drank for two weeks and studied footage of himself.
In 1996, he starred alongside Sean Connery and Ed Harris in Michael Bay's The Rock, the first of a string of action films for Cage. In the film, he played an FBI chemical weapons specialist breaking into Alcatraz federal prison. The Rock was a box office and critical success, with journalist Alexander Larman stating the film "launched Cage into an unexpected vocation as an offbeat action star." Next, he starred in Con Air and Face/Off, two commercially successful action thrillers that were both released in June 1997. In Con Air, Cage led an ensemble cast along with John Cusack and John Malkovich. Jerry Bruckheimer, Con Air's producer, offered the role to Cage after being impressed with his performances in Leaving Las Vegas and The Rock. Cage accepted despite disappointment at not being offered the villain role. Ebert felt Cage "[made] the wrong choice... by playing Cameron Poe as a slow-witted Elvis type who is very, very earnest and approaches every task with tunnel vision; it would have been more fun if he'd been less of a hayseed." John Woo's Face/Off saw Cage and John Travolta star in dual roles as sworn enemies—a terrorist and an FBI agent—who both undergo face transplants to impersonate each other, requiring Cage and Travolta to switch characters. Both performances were praised by critics, with the BBC writing in their review "Travolta and Cage invest their dual roles with physical subtleties that reflect the other actor's character."
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After starring in these action films back-to-back, Cage decided to "return to more serious fare" in the romantic fantasy film City of Angels (1998), a loose remake of the German film Wings of Desire (1987). Critics were split on the film and Cage's performance, with reviews ranging from describing him as "endlessly resourceful" to "[resembling] a serial killer more than an angel." Brian De Palma's thriller Snake Eyes, his second film of 1998, starred Cage as a corrupt detective. The film was met with mixed reviews, which were largely critical of its screenplay. Cage starred in Martin Scorsese's 1999 New York City paramedic drama Bringing Out the Dead.
Most of Cage's movies that have achieved financial success were in the action/adventure genre. These include The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), with Cage as a retired car thief. He took the lead role in the 2000 romantic comedy film The Family Man, in which he played a man forced to deal with an alternate life that had a plot similar to the Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and the 2001 war film Captain Corelli's Mandolin where he learned to play the mandolin from scratch for the part. In 2002, he was again nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe best actor awards for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman's fictional twin Donald in Adaptation.
Cage made his directorial debut in 2002 with Sonny, a low-budget drama starring James Franco as a male prostitute whose mother (Brenda Blethyn) serves as his pimp. Cage had a small role in the film, which received poor reviews and a short run in a limited number of theaters. Cage's producing career includes Shadow of the Vampire (2000), the first effort from Saturn Films. He starred in Ridley Scott's 2003 black comedy crime film Matchstick Men, in which he played a con artist with obsessive–compulsive disorder.
2004–2011: Franchise films
In his second-highest-grossing film to date, National Treasure (2004), Cage played an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. In 2005, two films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man, failed to find a significant audience despite nationwide releases and good reviews for his performances. The 2006 remake of The Wicker Man was very poorly reviewed, and failed to make back its $40-million budget. In early December 2006, Cage announced at the Bahamas International Film Festival that he planned to curtail his future acting endeavors to pursue other interests. On The Dresden Files for the Sci-Fi Channel, Cage is listed as the executive producer. The much-criticized Ghost Rider (2007), based on the Marvel Comics character, fared better, earning more than $45 million (the top earner) during its opening weekend and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on March 25, 2007. Also in 2007, he had a small but notable role as the Chinese criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu in Rob Zombie's fake trailer Werewolf Women of the S.S. from the B-movie double feature Grindhouse, starred in Next, which shared the concept of a glimpse into an alternate timeline with Cage's previous film, The Family Man, and reprised his role as a treasure hunter in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
In November 2007, Cage was spotted backstage at a Ring of Honor wrestling show in New York City researching for the lead role for The Wrestler. However, Cage dropped out of production shortly afterward because he felt that he did not have enough time to prepare for the role and director Darren Aronofsky preferred Mickey Rourke for the lead role. Rourke would go on to receive an Academy Award nomination for his performance. In an interview with /Film, Aronofsky said of Cage's decision to leave the film that "Nic was a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but... you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race."
In 2008, Cage appeared as Joe, a contract killer who undergoes a change of heart while on a work outing in Bangkok, in the film Bangkok Dangerous. The film is shot by the Pang Brothers and has a distinctly South-East Asian flavor. In 2009, Cage starred in the science fiction thriller Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, he plays an MIT professor who examines the contents of a time capsule unearthed at his son's elementary school. Startling predictions found inside the capsule that have already come true lead him to believe that the world is going to end at the close of the week and that he and his son are somehow involved in the destruction. The film received mixed reviews but was the box office winner on its opening weekend.
Also in 2009, Cage starred in the film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by acclaimed German director Werner Herzog. He portrayed a corrupt police officer with gambling, drug and alcohol addictions. The film was very well received by critics, holding a rating of 87% positive reviews on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Cage was lauded for his performance, with Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune writing "Herzog has found his ideal interpreter, a performer whose truth lies deep in the artifice of performance: ladies and gentlemen, Nicolas Cage, at his finest." This film reunited Cage with Eva Mendes, who played his love interest in Ghost Rider. In 2010, Cage starred in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in which he played the sorcerer, and the next year, headlined the period piece Season of the Witch, as a 14th-century knight transporting a woman accused of causing the Black Plague to a monastery. In 2011, Cage reprised his role in Ghost Rider's sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
2012–2017: Career setbacks
In 2013, Cage was involved in many projects. Notable films including animated film The Croods, in which he voiced a character named Grug Crood. The Croods received positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success grossing $585 million against a budget of $135 million. He starred as main character in The Frozen Ground, a thriller crime drama film directed and written by Scott Walker in his directorial debut, based on the crimes of real-life Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen. The film, reunited him with Cusack, depicts an Alaskan State Trooper, played by Cage, seeking to apprehend Hansen, played by Cusack, by partnering with a young woman who escaped from Hansen's clutches. The film has received mixed reviews though Cage's performance was cited as a highlight and solid. He also starred in Joe, an independent crime drama film directed and co-produced by David Gordon Green, adaptation from Larry Brown's 1991 novel of the same name. In this film Nicolas Cage is a tormented man who hires a 15-year-old boy (played by Tye Sheridan) and protects him from his abusive father. The film premiered at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2013, with a subsequent screening at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. It was a box office flop, grossing only $2.36 million from a $4 million budget, but received critical acclaim from critics, who praised Cage's performance and Green's direction.
The 2016 black comedy Dog Eat Dog, Cage's second film with Paul Schrader, reunited him with Willem Dafoe (after Wild at Heart) as a pair of ex-convicts hired to kidnap a baby. The film had its premiere as the closing entry for the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2016. It was released on November 4, 2016, in the United States. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars, writing, "It's the right director for the right project and the result is Schrader's best for years: a lairy, nasty, tasty crime thriller built on black-comic chaos." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "A rare film to have been shot in Cleveland, Dog Eat Dog definitely looks like it was shot on the cheap but puts what it needs to up on the screen with vigor and wit."
Cage starred alongside Selma Blair and Anne Winters in Brian Taylor's horror comedy film, Mom and Dad, which premiered in the Midnight Madness section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in theaters on January 19, 2018, and received positive reviews from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes defining his performance as "over-the-top." Director John Waters appreciated the film, naming Mom and Dad as one of the best movies of 2018, placing it fourth on his personal top list.
2018–present: Critical resurgence
In 2018, Cage starred in the action thriller film Mandy, which premiered on January 19 at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com praised the movie, writing that "for all of the endless feral performances that Cage has given, in movies good, bad and forgettable, Cosmatos' style-driven, '80s-tastic passion for weird worlds and characters takes full advantage of Cage's greatness, and then some." In October, Mandy's producer Elijah Wood announced his intention to size up an Oscar campaign for Nicolas Cage and for composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (who died in February of that year) but the film was disqualified because it was also released on Video On Demand on September 14.
Later that year, Cage voiced Clark Kent / Superman in the animated film Teen Titans Go! To the Movies. He had originally been slated to portray Superman in Tim Burton's canceled Superman film, Superman Lives, in the 1990s. He voiced an alternate monochromatic 1930s universe version of Peter Parker / Spider-Man Noir in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). Cage based his vocal performance on films of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. On January 28, 2019, Viktor and Irina Yelchin premiered a documentary about their son Anton Yelchin, Love, Antosha, at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary was directed by Garret Price and contains various interviews with some of Anton's friends and collaborators such as Kristen Stewart, J. J. Abrams, Chris Pine, Jennifer Lawrence, Jodie Foster, John Cho and Martin Landau. Cage starred as the Narrator of the film, reading various writings by Yelchin.
In December 2018, it was announced that Cage had signed to play the lead role for Richard Stanley's Color Out of Space, based on the short story "The Colour Out of Space" by H. P. Lovecraft. This was Stanley's first feature film directed since his firing from The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). Color Out of Space premiered on September 7, 2019, in the Midnight Madness portion of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, where Cage was awarded for his role with the Creative Coalition's Spotlight Initiative Award. Following select preview screenings on January 22, the film was released in 81 theaters in the United States on January 24, 2020.
In December 2018, it was announced that Sion Sono was working on his first overseas production and English-language debut, Prisoners of the Ghostland, starring Nicolas Cage. Cage said the film "might be the wildest movie I've ever made." Its plot revolves around a notorious criminal, Hero (played by Cage), who is sent to rescue the governor's adopted granddaughter, who has disappeared into a dark region called Ghostland. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 31, 2021.
In May 2020, it was announced that Cage would be playing the role of Joe Exotic in a scripted eight-episode Tiger King series, written and executive produced by Dan Lagana. It was announced that the project was scrapped in July 2021. In 2013, it was confirmed that Nicolas Cage would reprise his role as Grug in The Croods: A New Age, which was released in 2020.
Cage produced and starred in the 2021 film Pig, where he plays Robin "Rob" Feld, a former chef turned reclusive truffle-forager who must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. Cage received critical acclaim for his performance and earned a second nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor. He gained further acclaim for portraying a fictionalized version of himself in the 2022 action comedy film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent as well as for his portrayal of Paul, a professor who begins appearing in the dreams of others, in the 2023 Dream Scenario, resulting in his fifth Golden Globe nomination.
In the 2023 horror comedy film Renfield, inspired by the 1897 Bram Stoker novel Dracula, Cage portrays Count Dracula opposite Nicholas Hoult's Renfield. Also in 2023, Cage was included as a playable character in the horror video game Dead by Daylight. Cage reprised his role as Clark Kent / Superman in the 2023 film The Flash in a cameo appearance as an alternate version of the superhero. Cage shot his scenes through volumetric capture and CGI was used to de-age him.
In July 2024, Cage starred as the titular serial killer in the horror thriller film Longlegs, which he produced. In August, Cage signed on to play legendary gridiron football coach and broadcaster John Madden in the Amazon MGM Studios film Madden. Cage headlines the 2026 television series Spider-Noir for MGM+ and Amazon Prime Video, portraying a live-action version of Spider-Man Noir, named Ben Reilly, in an alternate 1930s New York City.
From Wikipedia’s article on Saturn Films, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3