Does Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” finally have a distributor and release date even before making its world and North American premieres at Venice and TIFF?
Looks that way. According to GetTheBigPicture, who received an email from a film editor, First Look Pictures (the studio behind Lindsay Lohan’s recent “Labor Pains” and the Cuba Gooding Jr. film, “The Way of War”) are releasing the film on November 20.
First Look’s roster is decidedly B-movie with many of their pictures going straight to DVD or just films we’ve never heard of (The Morgan Freeman/Antonio Banderas film, “The Code” looks like something on the straight-to-Blockbuster Action shelf), so that doesn’t bode well for Herzog’s film, but the original trailer did look a little B.
The picture, not a remake of Abel Ferrera’s 1992 film “Bad Lieutenant” (the producers own the title so they can do what they want much to the chagrin of the Bronx-born filmmaker) stars Nicolas Cage as a quasi version of Harvey Keitel’s character in the original film (coked-out, prostitute-hungry, nuts), but this time
the setting is the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Cage’s character saves a girl in the storm and according to the recent synopsis, “During his heroic act, he severely injures his back and is put on prescription pain medication. A year later, Terence – struggling with his addictions to sex, Vicodin and cocaine – finds himself in the battle to bring down drug dealer Big Fate, who is suspected of massacring an entire family of African immigrants.”
The movie also stars Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit, Fairuza Balk and Jennifer Coolidge. Curiously enough, we posted a Herzog/’Lieutenant’ EPK that had been making the rounds for a few days (admittedly, late) and when we dove deep into it and found some potential spoilers… all of a sudden the EPK was pulled down. Hmm….
