The recent demand for Nicolas Cage’s performances has made the actor an expensive figure.
Key Details
- Actor Nicolas Cage developed a bad reputation as an actor willing to take terrible roles in cheap movies in the past decade.
- With his recent critical and financial success in recent movies, his star has risen again—and with it his price to appear in new movies.
- “Enjoying renewed interest from all corners in Hollywood due to his praised performance in the 2021 indie thriller Pig, Nicolas Cage has entered what can only be called a renaissance,” says The Hollywood Reporter.
- Major studios are now seeking him for large sequels to Face/Off and National Treasure, as well as a major role as Dracula in Universal Pictures’ new film Renfield, even as his price has multiplied five-fold.
Why It’s Important
The entertainment industry is infamously fickle and fiercely competitive. If you aren’t the big thing of the moment, you aren’t in demand. Those tables have turned for the one-time washed-up actor who did major Hollywood films like Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, and Con Air.
“After years of making indies, the actor is in demand for live-action studio films for the first time since 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,” says The Hollywood Reporter.
Cage spent the better part of a decade producing dozens of indie and video-on-demand films, and voicing animated movies like The Croods—charging less than $1.5 million per performance. The Hollywood Reporter claims that he is being quoted for $4 million per film and that he was paid $7 million for this year’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Backing up a bit
The actor has defended his work in indie and video-on-demand filmmaking. He told IndieWire last year that his eclectic performances in cheap films were a means to experiment with new acting styles and methods, to “break free from the naturalism, so to speak, and express a larger way of performance.”
“Now, even amid the renaissance that sees him currently shooting the Ari Aster-produced A24 movie Dream Scenario, he’s still willing to follow his Vegas instincts and bet on projects. Says the indie source, he will do discounts on things if he is really into the project,” says The Hollywood Reporter.
Notable quote
“Of course, this late-career resurgence is nowhere near his heights as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, the actor reportedly commanded $20 million a film for movies such as 2000’s Gone in Sixty Seconds, 2002’s Windtalkers, and 2004’s National Treasure. He received $16 million for the 1998 Brian De Palma thriller Snake Eyes,” says The Hollywood Reporter.