We got our first look at the trailer for Nic Cage's muscle car and hellfire fueled rampage Drive Angry. Plus, we talked to Cage himself and asked why he plays so many supernatural characters that are literally Hell on wheels.
Many folks have pointed out that Cage's character in Drive Angry has a lot in common with his character in Ghost Rider. After all, they're both damned souls who dispense justice from the driver's seat. We asked Cage why vehicles are such a popular tool for the damned.
Cage also explained why he so frequently portrays supernatural characters:
I am eclectic and I'm always looking to push the boundaries with film acting, and at this point in my career I think I stumbled on the concept that if I can play characters that have a bit of a supernatural element, it opens up what I can do with the character. It's infinite, it's limitless the things I can do. One of the ways is to play a character who's really high on drugs, like in Bad Lieutenant. Another way is to play someone who's from someplace else, like Drive Angry.
During the Drive Angry, we also got to see a two-minute trailer that director Patrick Lussier put together right before Con. What we saw very much looked like a spiritual successor to the Crank movies, full of over-the-top car stunts, insane gunplay, and lots and lots of fire. Drive Angry adds a lot of supernatural material to that mix. We already know that Nic Cage's character has escaped from Hell to find the kidnapped baby of his murdered daughter, and now we know that he's also out to save her from sinister thugs. Satan himself (William Fitchner) - who calls himself the Accountant because you don't want to end up on his books - is walking the Earth to find Cage's escaped soul, but he also might have to worry about what's going on with that baby. As one of Cage's victims tells him, that baby will change everything and unleash Hell on Earth. Of course, in the best line of the trailer, Cage responds, "Hell already is walking the Earth," and then...well, it isn't pretty.
In discussing the film's origin, director Patrick Lussier explains:
This movie right from the get-go was conceived to be a 3D movie. We're lovers of the great 70s car movies - Vanishing Point, Duel - and we wanted to do something like that. We wanted to make sure the cameras could actually do what we wanted to do. We don't have CGI cars in the movie. It's metal on metal. It's a real car flying off the side of the bridge.
After My Bloody Valentine, we wanted to do an action film. We wanted to capture those pre-Jaws action movies from the late 60s to 1975, with dark antiheroes. We actually started writing around Groundhog Day, and inevitably we started talking about Bill Murray and him driving the groundhog around. He says at one point, "Don't drive angry," and we realized that was the perfect title for the movie.
Given that Cage's character breaks out of Hell, does Lussier have an infernal escape plan of his own?
Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.