Mr. Floppy 12.23.08: The Nicolas Cage Special

Posted by Peter Bielik on 12.23.2008

This article doesn't have sad eyes.


Sorry for being late, but apparently, there were some problems with paragraph spacing. I found out only days after I sent the article and found out yesterday the corrections went unnoticed. :-) So hopefully, this'll finally find it's way through.

So far, there were two people whose careers were unstable enough to earn a special edition of Mr. Floppy. But that doesn't mean there aren't more people who would deserve this kind of treatment. You wouldn't have much trouble finding almost anyone. However, this week's recipient had just another movie released and it also managed to bomb at the box office. So I decided to check his filmography and found out he had quite an impressive number of flops under his belt.

To say that Cage's career is unstable would be an understatement. At one point, he was one of the most perspective stars in Hollywood. Both commercially and quality-wise.

It is well-known Nicolas Cage is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and trying to break into show-business on his own, he decided to change his surname from Coppola to Cage. He appeared in many movies in the 80s and early 90s that were of mixed quality and patiently waited for his big break, which eventually came in 1995.

In that year, stars were aligned exceptionally right for all three main participants of a small movie known as Leaving Las Vegas. Mike Figgis, the director and Elizabeth Shue, the lead actress starring opposite Cage never managed to duplicate this success ever again. Both earned nominations for an Academy Award while Nicolas Cage went on to win one for his exceptionally good performance as an alcoholic who decided to kill himself through his own addiction. Cage was really amazing in this role and IMHO, it's the best performance he ever gave.

With huge critical praise on his side and genuine respect of his peers as well, it was time to try to succeed with the general moviegoing public. And that also worked out. The Rock, Con Air and Face/off were all big-time hits and also received generally high critical praise. But afterwards, Cage's career started to dwindle. City of Angles was still a big success, but Snake Eyes was the first serious box office misstep.

Afterwards, Nic Cage's films started to become very hit and miss, plus the critical acclaim also started to slowly disappear until it reached a critical point in recent years.


So let's take a look at some of the flops in Nicolas Cage's illustrious career.





Year of the cock-up: 2002

Budget: $115,000,000

Domestic gross: $40,914,068

Foreign gross: $36,714,197

Worldwide gross: $77,628,265


This movie was another collaboration between Cage and director John Woo after previously successfully aligning their forces in Face/off. It was obvious this movie was very ambitious, maybe even aiming for some awards since war dramas generally do well at these ceremonies. Just a couple of problems- Nicolas Cage was still considered a good actor at the time, but even his supporters had to admit he looked a bit old for the part of a young, disillusioned officer. The movie was supposedly about Navajo code talkers, but the plot focused more on Cage's character instead on the more intriguing topic of code talkers which hasn't been explored very much on cinema.

As far as I know, there is a director's cut which is circa twenty minutes longer and probably better. To me, this is just another example of John Woo's incapability to deliver a really compelling movie. I stress that this is just my opinion, but I have seen numerous John Woo films and am always mystified why the hell is he so adored. Sure, Hard Boiled is relatively decent and I found Broken Arrow along with Face/off to be pretty good, but by no means have I seen anything from him that I would call great action or a great movie. Killer bore me to death for example.

Sometimes it seems to me that it just becomes so fashionable to like certain directors, nobody has the guts to say they do not like them or do not get what others like about their work.




Year of the cock-up: 2002

Budget: $19,000,000

Domestic gross: $22,498,520

Foreign gross: $10,302,653

Worldwide gross: $32,801,173


Adaptation is the second and last film for which Cage has earned an Oscar nomination. And deservingly so. He plays twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman (the first bearing the same name as the movie's scriptwriter), the first having an extreme case of writer's block (trying to adapt a book without a narrative) and the other selling his clichéd script for one million dollars.

As is almost always the case with Charlie Kaufman's scripts, the movie is very unusual, but at the same time extremely intelligent, funny and well-written. He has also written Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.

This movie flopped basically because it's too weird for the general customer of your local multiplex. It doesn't have anything to do with its qualities or Cage's performance or whatever else. I strongly suggest it to anyone who has already seen and liked some of Charlie Kaufman's other works, or to anyone who wants to see one of Cage's best performances.




Year of the cock-up: 2005

Budget: $50,000,000

Domestic gross: $24,149,632

Foreign gross: $48,467,436

Worldwide gross: $72,617,068

This is another film of Cage's which I really liked and this time it's actually even worse it flopped, since the material isn't so outside-of-the-box like Adaptation. No, what director and writer Andrew Niccol created is a very smart look at the international arms industry and weapon trafficking.

Cage plays Yuri Orlov, a Russian immigrant living in USA, who comes from a very modest upbringing. His parents own a small restaurant, which Yuri sees as providing a necessity as people have to eat. After Yuri sees two mobsters being shot, he decides guns are another necessity in today's world and chooses to provide them.

The movie doesn't glorify Yuri as someone good, but it doesn't necessarily make him look too inhuman either. He's more or less just a small fish in a big pond. It's not overly complicated, but I found this look on the arms industry as very thought-provoking. Especially the ending in which Yuri sits in an interrogation room with an agent played by Ethan Hawke and explains to him how some things are in this world.

To put it simply- there is simply too much money in the arms industry for it to be shut down. Illegal arms merchants are just the tip of the iceberg, not the real problem. Also, it doesn't hurt they are good and reliable distributors and enable governments (maybe?) to keep their hands clean.

Cage also delivers a very fine performance here and it's probably the last good performance I've seen from him.





Year of the cock-up: 2006

Budget: $40,000,000

Domestic gross: $23,649,127

Foreign gross: $15,105,946

Worldwide gross: $38,755,073


The last two films were good, but now it's time to balance things out a little bit. Actually, it's time to balance things out quite A LOT. Wicker Man is really the first film of Cage's filmography since he broke into stardom that's so insanely bad it's almost unbearable to watch it.

It's a remake of an old English horror film of the same name (which is from what I've read pretty good) and remakes are the norm of the day so it comes as no surprise someone thought this would be a good idea. But what director Neil LaBute and Nicolas Cage unleash on the viewer in this little gem- well that's really something else.

First of all- the movie is insanely boring. Insanely. I wonder why Mr. LaBute wrote this kind of script and made this kind of film when he obviously had no good idea about what he's doing. And Cage- well, he's just a treat in this one. His performance makes this film a genuine guilty pleasure. It's almost as if he forgot acting. Just like that. Or it just goes to show how important a good direction and a good script really are as it's tough to imagine this is the same guy who kicked so much ass in Leaving Las Vegas.

The Wicker Man now probably comfortably resides in bargain bins and newsstands all over the world. To illustrate it's awesomeness, I provide a clip of some best moments. Enjoy.

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Year of the cock-up: 2007

Budget: $70,000,000

Domestic gross: $18,211,013

Foreign gross: $56,637,639

Worldwide gross: $74,848,652

Next is an adaptation of a Phillip K. Dick short story called The Golden Man. I believe this was Cage's first real science fiction movie. Sure, argument could be made for Face/off, but that movie was still mainly an action piece in my opinion.

I've seen this film already in a newsstand in my country which probably goes to show how big of a hit it really was. I haven't seen it, but from what I've read, it's pretty bad. Then again, some of my friends however thought it was pretty cool however, so who knows. It wouldn't be the first time Hollywood made Phillip K. Dick spin in his grave one more time.

What everybody can agree on though is that Nicolas Cage's haircut was very nice. It's becoming the only interesting thing about his performances nowadays, and even that's not meant in a positive sense.

I don't have much else to write about this other than this was probably the last nail in Lee Tamahori's coffin. After xXx 2 flopped, this was his only chance to somewhat keep his name in the game. He didn't succeed, but hey- he can still run around dressed as a woman (hopefully someone gets this :-)).




Year of the cock-up: 2008

Budget: $45,000,000

Domestic gross: $15,298,133

Foreign gross: $23,802,628

Worldwide gross: $39,100,761 (still growing, but let's not kid ourselves- this ain't gonna be another Dark Knight)


And the last piece in this small cut through Nicolas Coppola's career is a very recent film few of you probably saw. Since remakes are not popular, this movie is also a remake of a 1999 Thai film of the same name. The original as well as the American version was directed by The Pang brothers, who've done a much better job in their own environment. The original was about a deaf and mute hitman who falls in love with a beautiful girl. But since Nicolas Cage needs some meaty dialogue to flex his acting muscles, the plot was effectively changed to hitman named Joe who falls in love with a deaf and mute girl. So the essentials stay intact in the producers' eyes.

I read this movie isn't very good. The Pang brothers reportedly tried to spice things up at least visually, but even that can get old after a while. And how about Nic? He (once again reportedly) goes through the film using one expression on his face.

All is not lost however as the film grossed $7.8 million on its opening weekend making this the first film since Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star to have the lowest gross for an opening week. Unfortunately, Dickie Roberts had a lower opening weekend so this reverse record breaking didn't work out. Oh and Nic had a very nice haircut in this one too.

Once again, I haven't seen this and would actually like to, but a quality DVD rip isn't on the net yet. As soon as it appears, I'm there.






So there you go. I could have included even more flops from Cage's career, but then this week's installment would start to resemble a filmography and we wouldn't want that now would we? It's pretty stoked as it is and there's more pictures than words here already. Heh.

To tell the truth, I'm actually a bit sorry for how Nicolas Cage's career is turning out. I used to really like him. But really, ever since The Wicker Man, the man just hasn't made one really good film. Quality of his performances also dwindled and he's choosing very questionable projects. I mean Ghost Rider? I know he's a fan, but that film's just absolutely brutal. When I saw it, I seriously wasn't sure if they were serious with the whole deal or if it was a tongue-in-cheek parody. Check out the scene where good Nicolas walks ripped and wet in front of the mirror and starts making funny faces. That's just insane. Anyway, it seems the director Mark Steven Johnson was 100 percent serious with Ghost Rider (he allegedly tried to go for something like, wait for this, The Crow!! Wow.) so I'd like to know where exactly does this man buy his tobacco.

Nicolas Cage is pretty effectively starting to make the impression it is indeed possible to forget acting. Or maybe he just lost his passion. His upcoming films Knowing and Bad Lieutenant look pretty good though so I have my fingers crossed. But if he continues to keep the same face through the entire film and keeps ridiculously changing his haircut- Cage may soon end up as a parody of himself.

I said I used to like him. People many times said he doesn't have much range as an actor, but he definitely can act and is suited well for some roles. Leaving Las Vegas, The Rock, Snake Eyes, 8 MM (a very underrated film IMO), Bringing out the Dead, Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Lord of War- those are all good performances that just can't be a coincidence. At least I hope so.

Since Nicolas Cage had so many beautiful flops in his illustrious career, I hereby award him the title Mr. Floppy.


No need to change this pic whatsoever people, Nic has done it all himself.

And that's all folks. The next installment will be here after Christmas so I'd like to wish everyone happy holidays. Eat a lot of sweets and unhealthy food, lay around on your couch all day, watch old Christmas movies and just generally have a good time.

Here's some good Christmas cheese for all of you.


I know websites are many times filled with mostly cynical comments and cynical people, but damn it- you know you like it!

See ya

- Peter