According to the director of Leaving Las Vegasneither he nor Nicolas Cage were paid the promised money for the film, even when it won Cage his only Academy Award for Best Actor. The film was released in 1995 and cost just under $50 million out of a $4 million budget, but it seems Lumiere Pictures denied that the film made a profit and didn’t pay out the $100,000 they were supposed to pay.
Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis recently appeared on the It happened in Hollywood podcast, and he talked about his multi-award-winning film, but in particular the almost unbelievable revelation that he and Cage were both promised a $100,000 payment for the film, but never saw a dime thanks to the studio claiming that the movie didn’t. not making enough profit. Figgis said:
“[Lumiere Pictures] said the film never made a profit. Whatever. I mean, my career took off again, and the next movie I did, I got paid really well. And within a year [Nic] was making $20 million a movie, so that was pretty good.”
To imagine an actor not being paid for a critically acclaimed role is pretty implausible, especially for a movie that at first glance appeared to be making a healthy return on its miniscule budget. If you think of that actor as Nicolas Cage, who didn’t do bad for himself in 1995, it becomes even more of a strange anomaly that could only happen in Hollywood.
Nicolas Cage has recently seen a huge revival
While there have been times when Nicolas Cage was an actor who either loved or hated him, there’s no denying that his career has seen quite a few highlights when it comes to box office success, including that of Con Air, Face/Off and National treasure. While he has spent a number of years doing some direct-to-video releases, and some less-than-brilliantly received roles, there has been a marked revival of interest in Cage in recent years.
Last year, Cage’s role in Pig was critically acclaimed and sparked a lot of new interest in the actor, who followed up the film with The unbearable weight of enormous talent this year, in which he appeared together with Pedro Pascal as a fictional version of himself. As one of the highest-rated films of Cage’s career, with solid 86% and 87% ratings from critics and audiences respectively, the film saw Cage’s rejuvenation take a huge leap.
His next project is another curveball role, in which Cage will play Dracula in the universal horror comedy Renfieldthat follows their invisible man remake and re-imagines Count Dracula’s crazed henchman in a modern setting. With Cage on set in full Drac garb, and the actor previously picking up a list of classic influences that he incorporated into his performance, Renfield is another intriguing addition to the Cage canon.