A film produced by the director of the cult hit of 2011, Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn. A film that also counts Anton Yelchin and Irène Jacob amongst its cast. A film that casts Cage as a CIA Agent on the brink of a forced retirement thrown into one last mission to chase down his arch nemesis – the world’s most wanted terrorist – in an international game of cat and mouse.
And yet, Nic Cage would very much like you to not see this film.
See, there’s a been a bit of a brew-ha-ha brewing between the film’s distributor, Lionsgate, and director/writer Schrader, and it’s trouble that’s been building up ever since the film wrapped principal photography on the Gold Coast back in March. Producers of the film have been at loggerheads with Schrader over the edit, with Schrader claiming he’d been locked out of the editing phase, and producers claiming that Schrader’s cut of the film differed greatly from the script and that he refused to take their notes.
With the release of a poster and a trailer yesterday, the situation has finally bubbled over with Schrader taking to social media to rail against the film’s distributor and, along with Refn, Cage and Yelchin, take a really passive aggressive stance on things.
Schrader took to Facebook to post the following.
“We lost the battle. “Dying of the Light,” a film I wrote and directed, was taken away from me, redited, scored and mixed without my imput. Yesterday Grindstone (a division of Lionsgate) released the poster and the trailer. They are available on line. Here we are, Nick Cage, Anton Yelchin, Nic Refn and myself, wearing our “non-disparagement” T shirts.
The non-disparagement clause in an artist’s contract gives the owners of the film the right to sue the artist should the owner deem anything the artist has said about the film to be “derogatory.” I have no comment on the film or others connected with the picture.”
In layman’s terms, the non-disparagement agreement is a clause in actor’s contracts that states they can’t talk shit about the film prior to its release. And in case you were wondering – yes, they really did get t-shirts with that clause printed on them made up…
…and now I really kinda want one for myself.
The film comes out on December 5th. Whether you walk in the path of Cage or show your defiance is entirely up to you.
But if I were you, I wouldn’t make Nic Cage angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
via FilmDrunk.
