Nicolas Cage movies always get a decent amount of media attention, even when he’s playing a secondary character like Big Daddy in the first Kick-Ass . Oliver Stone’s Snowden will be his next big screen project, and he has already begun filming in Germany.
Oliver Stone is known for his often outrageous movies dripping with controversy, having helmed the Jim Morrison biopic The Doors , Natural Born Killers , and the critical flop Alexander . His last film with Cage was in 2005, a take on the story of the World Trade Center .
Snowden will be based on the story of ex-NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden , whose revelation that the government has been spying on us using our own devices has raised concerns worldwide. The effects of his reveal have resulted in accusations of the U.S. government spying on other countries, and even inspired Ubisoft to create the high-tech spy shooter Watch Dogs .
Joseph Gordon-Levitt ( The Dark Knight Rises ) is set to play the role of Edward Snowden alongside Shailene Woodley ( Divergent ), who plays his Russian girlfriend. Nicolas Cage will be cast in the role of a former U.S. Intelligence official most likely bent on bringing Snowden to justice.
The story is taken from books such as Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man and Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena’s Time of the Octopus .
Nicolas Cage will play a US intelligence officer in Oliver Stone’s Snowden movie http://t.co/19GxObxuhd pic.twitter.com/BTGmjW3kP4
— The Verge (@verge) February 23, 2015
Between Stone’s flair for controversy and Cage’s tendency to give his roles a dramatic intensity that made him famous, there is no doubt that Snowden will be entertaining.
Nicolas Cage will be joined in the Snowden movie by Melissa Leo ( Oblivion ), Zachary Quinto ( Star Trek Into Darkness ), Tom Wilkinson ( Batman Begins ), Rhys Ifans ( The Amazing Spider-Man ), Joely Richardson ( The Patriot ), and Timothy Olyphant ( Live Free or Die Hard ). The Snowden movie release date in the United States is set for December 25.
[Picture by Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images ]
