While “The Wicker Man” remains the ultimate in Nicolas Cage gift-giving, providing the internet with an abundance of animated gifs and mashups of the one-liners and insanity within, a new contender is on the horizon: “Left Behind.” The first clip is here, and it is glorious.
In case you forgot, this remake/reboot is an adaptation of the apocalyptic Christian-themed books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which are best known for being a hit with kind of folks who really like religious movies starring Kirk Cameron (he featured in the God-approved trilogy of movies). Somehow, the filmmakers of that original trilogy managed to snare Cage for this new take, presumably by promising him Superman memorabilia or something. Anyway, veteran stuntman Vic Armstrong (everything from “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” to “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit“) is given the thankless task of directing this movie—about a group of survivors following the Rapture—and the results are Cage-ian.
The first look is awesome. Even with a brief forty seconds we get a fantastic piece of dialogue for the ages (“But hey, if she’s gonna run off with another man, why not Jesus?”), and so many Cage facial expressions, they simply cannot be contained. No word yet on an official release date, but this has future midnight screenings written all over it. Watch it below. [FilmDrunk/Coming Soon]