Nic Cage Teams with BORAT Director for Bin Laden Comedy
Before you get too excited: no, Nicolas Cage won't be playing the infamous terrorist Osama Bin Laden in this movie - although that would admittedly be pretty amazing.
THR reports that Cage will star in a satirical comedy called Army of One for Borat director Larry Charles. And though this will be based on a true story, don't expect anything serious along the lines of American Sniper or Zero Dark Thirty.
Army of One is loosely based on Chris Heath's GQ magazine article recounting the real-life misadventures of Gary Faulkner, a Colorado construction worker who took it upon himself to find Bin Laden, including trying to sneak into Pakistan and Afghanistan numerous times.
Sounds a little like the Morgan Spurlock documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, but hopefully Cage's...let's call it "unique" brand of acting will give this film a life of its own. Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph, the guys who wrote the Kevin Costner film Draft Day, wrote this "semi-scripted project," and with Charles' history of working with improv legend Sacha Baron Cohen, I'm hoping he'll give Cage similar opportunities to find the story on the set. And even for those of you who are already assuming this movie is going to be terrible, at least it should be interesting to see what they come up with. Come on: Nic Cage riffing on tracking down Bin Laden all by himself? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me...which, I'm guessing, is exactly why he signed on for it.
The Weinsteins will release the film in the U.S. through their TWC-Dimension banner, although no release date is in place yet. We'll keep you posted.