“I love watching a fat guy score points.”
Why, John?
“‘Cause first you get the fat man spike, and then you get the fat man dance!”
John Madden was a football player, a great football coach, and an even better football commentator, but John Madden’s ability to play himself has been underrated. The above lines from his role in the football movie The Replacements starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, and a somehow still foaming with rage Jon Favreau have lived rent-free in my head for at least 20 years. Even if he was reading someone else’s script, everything John Madden said sounded like a John Madden line, a trait he shares with Nicolas Cage—I can’t imagine a more thrilling cast for a John Madden biopic.
As announced today, Cage will reprise his role as the delayed commentator in the film, which is at least in part “the origin story of Madden NFL, one of the greatest video game franchises of all time.” Hollywood Reporter. Honestly, I think it could work. A typical sports biopic is all about the glory, and I really don’t think we need two hours of a teen/twenty/thirty-something Madden becoming the Football Champion before the final scene where he dramatically puts on a headset and enters the commentary booth —cut in black above the roar of the crowdAt the same time, an entire movie dedicated to the making of a video game would be just as eye-roll-worthy as last year’s Air Jordans movie. Perhaps meeting in the middle will result in something that will not be entirely conventional and will not be a pure Ode to the Brand.
Whatever the script, I expect Cage to tap into the real energy of Big Dog here. He’s an actor who knows better than to try for a perfect imitation; he’ll come up with some crazy take on Madden’s voice and embodiment of his outsized personality that feels right, regardless of whether it’s “accurate.” Cage is also very good at playing himself, and has done so twice recently — in his film The unbearable burden of enormous talentand in Dead By Daylight, where he promised, “When you play survivor Nic Cage, I want you to know that we are one, that we are connected.”
I’m sure he’ll bring that same dedication to the scene where he teaches a group of computer nerds how to make a football attack seem legitimate on an Apple II. When he unleashes a surprise BOOM! everyone will take a little leap. It won’t be in the script; he’ll just feel it.
I wish someone else had directed this film for Cage, not David O. Russell, who was accused of some pretty disgusting things and bad behavior on movie sets over the years. Just a few days ago, George Clooney called Russell a “miserable asshole” for no reason during the interviewso he’s clearly still bitter about a movie they made together 25 years ago. Honestly, these aren’t the good vibes I’d expect from a Madden movie.
“Nicolas Cage, one of our greatest and most original actors, will embody the ultimate American spirit of originality, fun and determination, where anything is possible, as beloved national legend John Madden,” Russell said in a casting call for the film. “Along with the fierce style, focus and inspired individualism of Al Davis, owner of the underrated Oakland Raiders, the film will tell the story of the joy, humanity and genius of John Madden in the wildly imaginative, cool world of the 1970s.”
It is not known when we can expect the film, but I bet it will be at the end of next year.
