The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent Trailer: Nicolas Cage Meets His Biggest Fan

Have no fear, Nicky is here, y'all — and it's not like he really ever went anywhere, OK? That's Nicolas Cage's mentality in the new red-band trailer for his upcoming meta-comedy, "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," and we're ready to see how this version of the Academy Award winner (named Nick Cage, with a K) handles being hard up for attention and fame in a dwindling point in his career.

You see, in the visual, we learn that Cage is struggling in his work and with being the movie star he was once known to be. The trailer opens with him contemplating this struggle alongside actor Neil Patrick Harris (seemingly playing Cage's agent) while hanging out poolside together. He's been living in a hotel for a year, and he owes them half-a-mil — so he's not in the best place at the start of this film. NPH reveals there is an offer on the table for Cage to attend a billionaire superfan's birthday party for a $1 million paycheck, which he agrees to after hearing the price tag.

It turns out the superfan in question — a man named Javi, played by Pedro Pascal — is a drug kingpin, according to the film's official synopsis, so it seems things will undoubtedly get more complicated for Cage. In the trailer, we see him and Pascal's Javi getting into all sorts of ridiculous hijinks during Cage's time at his party, all of which is pretty funny, but we don't see much about that second side of the film that is revealed in the synopsis. Guess we'll just have to wait to see how the movie shakes down when it releases on April 22, 2022.

The movie also stars Sharon Horgan as Cage's ex-wife, newcomer Lily Sheen as Cage's daughter, and comedian Tiffany Haddish as a CIA agent who enlists Cage into a scheme involving the superfan.

"Tiffany factors into the story once Nic has gotten to Mallorca, where the birthday party takes place," director Tom Gormican recently told Entertainment Weekly of the film's raucous plot. "She ropes Nic into a CIA operation, and the plot [proceeds] from there." Yeah, who knows what's going to happen in this movie, y'all.

The movie, written by Gormican and Kevin Etten, appears to have all manner of twists and turns in its meta container — but it seems to have always been sure about one thing: its unwavering dedication to Nicolas Cage. In fact, Gorman revealed to Entertainment Weekly that it was having Cage in the film or bust.

"It was written for Nic. He was not attached to this movie. This was a shot in the dark that we would end up getting him. If Nic said he did not want to do the movie, it was just a pile of garbage. It was very specifically for him. As a pure business decision, as a writer-director, it was probably the stupidest thing we could have done, but we just really, really believed in this particular story. I think it took a lot of courage for Nic to embrace this type of role where you're playing yourself, but it's a character who's not in a great place."

The movie also seems to analyze the celebrity/fan dynamic, which is something I personally find incredibly fascinating and furthermore would be interesting to see explored through two men. "Javi has a wax statue of Nic and you think, 'Oh, it might be awkward between a film star and a fan,'" Cage told EW. "But they're both cinephiles, so they're having wonderful conversations about 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' and 'Paddington 2.'"

Needless to say, I'm beyond ready to discover the ins and outs of this film, a movie the trailer calls the "most Nicolas Cage movie ever." If it lives up to that phrase, it's bound to be one of the best of 2022. Fingers crossed.