Cult actor to take over directorial duties on VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY
We love Nicolas Cage.
No other performer has rode the Hollywood rails so operatically, with so many dramatic highs and lows and bizarre deviations and sidebars. And in the middle of all these wild, decades-spanning acting gigs and public antics, the man has somehow managed to even sort of create his own sub-genre, which we affectionately dub “Cagesploitation”.
Cage loves horror and fantasy and once, when I interviewed him and asked about his love of the genre, he replied:
“There’s horror in everything I do…I bring the horror sometimes subtly, sometimes not. But it’s always with me.”
I always liked that answer and indeed, it’s true…no matter the role, Cage seems like he’s beaming his energy in from another darker dimension.
Which makes the news dropped today that Cage will be returning to the director’s chair (he previously directed the New Orleans Gothic SONNY) to helm the jet-black Joyce Carol Oates-penned thriller VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY exciting. Cage takes over for the departing Harold Becker.
Cage was previously attached to the picture as the lead actor “Detective Dromoor”. So he’ll be directing himself. Awesome.
“I’m excited to work on VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY and bring Joyce Carol Oates’ bittersweet novel to the screen. Storytelling has always been my passion and I’m honored to work with this talented team to tell a tale of the suffering too many women have endured,” says Cage in the official press release.
VENGEANCE’s screenpaly is written by John Mankiewicz (grandson on CITIZEN KANE writer Herman J. Mankiewicz), based on the award-winning novel “Rape: A Love Story” written by acclaimed author Oates.
Here’s the synopsis:
On the Fourth of July, twelve-year-old Bethie Maguireflags down Niagara Falls Police Detective John Dromoor. Bethie’s mother, Teena, has been brutally raped by four meth heads, was left for dead, and is being nursed back to health by her mother, Agnes,a strong, fierce advocate for her daughter and granddaughter who has taken on the responsibility of caring for them at great risk, as the meth heads are let out of jail on bail. Bethie’s testimony, along with the evidence collected, should be enough to put the boys in jail for life. However, the parents of the rapists hire the nationally renowned criminal defense attorney, Jay Kirkpatrick, who shifts the focus of evidence away from the defendants and puts the spotlight on Agnes’s daughter, the attractive plaintiff, Teena, challenging her credibility based on her sobriety, shoddy parenting, and sexual promiscuity. Moving at a relentless, compelling pace, “Vengeance: A Love Story” reveals how an act of unbelievable and raw brutality twists the lives of three generations of women, and sets Detective Dromoor on his own course of police vigilante justice.
Prior to VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY, Nicolas Cage collaborated several features with the film’s producer and financier Michael Mendelsohn including: USS INDIANAPOLIS, RAGE, LORD OF WAR, FAMILY MAN, WILD AT HEART, and RED ROCK WEST.
Remaining roles for VENGEANCE are currently casting and will be announced shortly.
We follow all Cage-centric news with interest and will update you as we get more news.
In the meantime…
