Nic Cage wants to play ghost in Wicker Man sequel set in Japan, for some reason
So picture this except, you know, more Japanese.
Between TIFF’s new Nicolas Cage retrospective (which starts tomorrow with Valley Girl) and Bruce McDonald courting Cage for his upcoming, Cagey-sounding psycho-thriller, it’s like Toronto has become an incidental hub of Cagedom. And if TIFF ever remounts its late-night Cage programming in a decade, it may have another surefire cult classic on its hands.
In a web chat today with readers of Empire, Cage acknowledged that he’d be interesting in revisiting his character from the widely-lambasted Wicker Man remake, except this time, it’s set in Japan, and he’s a ghost—and he wants it directed by a great Japanese director, which would categorically exclude the remake’s LaBute from being at the helm, making it better than the 2006 version already. (He also said that if you were going to a “fancy dress party” attired as a Nic Cage character, you should go as Face/Off’s dapper terrorist Castor Troy.)
Given that Cage’s next major star turn sees him reprising his role as a motorcycle-riding skeleton that pisses fire, an L.A. cop murdered by feminist pagans returning to this mortal coil as a spooky ghost who lives in Japan doesn’t even seem that ludicrous. Have you ever seen Deadfall? Given that potential call-back lines like, “Take your stupid traditional Japanese Noh mask!” practically write themselves, expect Cage’s IMDB page to confirm The Wicker Man 2: Spirit of Vengeance in the near future.
