Nicolas Cage drama starts filming in Croatia

Lionsgate’s new drama, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, starring Hollywood legend Nicolas Cage, is filming in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik from today.

The drama has been in preparation since August and will shoot in the historic walled city for 15 days with a crew of just over 400.

Based on a script by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, the meta project sees Cage star as a version of himself desperate to get a role in a new Quentin Tarantino movie, while also dealing with a strained relationship with his teenage daughter, and occasionally talking to an egotistical 1990s version of himself.

Kevin Turen, producer of Waves and executive producer on HBO's Euphoria, is producing the project with Cage and his Saturn Films banner, along with Mike Nilon.

The project has applied for the generous local filming incentive, which offers a base 25% cash rebate on qualifying expenses for features, animations, documentaries, TV films and TV series.

This incentive is one of the key draws of filming in Croatia, which has been open to productions for a few months now thanks to the country’s strict Covid-19 restrictions limiting the number of deaths to low levels.

“The planned spending of foreign investors for 10 projects this year exceeds HRK 85m. We only dared to hope for such a result in the spring,” said Chris Marcich, director of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), which administers the incentive. “The audiovisual community has proven to be extremely responsible and I believe that all projects, domestic and foreign, will be successfully carried out according to plan.”