Nicolas Cage has played a serial killer, a psycho dad, and even himself, but transforming into John Madden may be his grandest task.
Deadline broke the news that filmmaker David O. Russell has tapped Cage to play the iconic Super Bowl-winning Oakland Raiders head coach. The drama film, simply titled Madden, will come from Amazon MGM Studios.
Russell will helm the project and write the script, following an earlier version by Cambron Clark. Little is known about the project, but it’s being labeled a biopic that will investigate how John Madden became involved with the iconic football video game franchise.
“Nicolas Cage, one of our greatest and most original actors, will portray the best of the American spirit of originality, fun, and determination in which anything is possible as beloved national legend John Madden,” said director David O Russell. “Together with the ferocious style, focus, and inspired individualism of Al Davis, owner of the underdog Oakland Raiders, the feature will be about the joy, humanity, and genius that was John Madden in a wildly inventive, cool world of the 1970s.
As yet, there’s no word of a potential release date for the film. Cage meanwhile is fresh off the critically acclaimed Longlegs [check out our review here], and is gearing up to reprise his Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse role as Spider-Man Noir in live-action for Sony and Prime Video’s Spider-Noir TV series.