If you’ve ever wanted to see an action-packed, R-rated buddy comedy that sees Nicolas Cage playing a fictionalized version of himself, who accepts a million-dollar offer to attend the birthday party of a wealthy drug cartel kingpin brought to scenery-chewing life by Pedro Pascal, then you’re in luck.
The first trailer for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent has finally arrived ahead of the movie’s release in April 2022, and it looks every bit as insane as we’ve been expecting. Cage goes full meta by embodying jobbing actor Nicolas Cage, who also experiences hallucinations of a younger iteration of himself from the height of his career.
Throw in Tiffany Haddish’s CIA agent roping Cage in to try and take down the wanted drug dealer, plenty of self-referential humor that pokes fun at everything from the star’s financial troubles to his biggest, best and most successful movies, and this thing looks positively, undeniable insane, which of course means there’s a high chance it’ll be awesome.
Cage has been on a roll recently, delivering a string of accomplished performances that couldn’t be more different from each other in titles including Mandy, Pig, Willy’s Wonderland and Prisoners of the Ghostland, but it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that playing himself could be his greatest challenge yet. On the plus side, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent makes it seem as though he’s set to pull it off with aplomb.