Donnie Darko writer and director Richard Kelly has set up a new film project with Nicolas Cage called Amicus. The movie is a true crime thriller based on one of the most influential First Amendment scholars of the past two decades, Rodney Smolla, who will be played by Cage.
Good grief! Is it just me, or does it seem like every week Nicolas Cage joins another film production? Some have been interesting, others sound like crap. This one should be interesting though. Kelly hasn't really made a decent film since Donnie Darko, every movie since then such as Southland Tales and The Box has bombed at the box office, and with audiences and critics. I think I might have enjoyed these movies more than most people though.
According to Variety the film will span 25 years, and is based on...
...the true story of Lawrence Horn, a former record producer and Motown Records exec who is currently serving a life sentence in prison for hiring Detroit-based hit man James Perry to murder his wife, quadriplegic son and the wealthy family's overnight nurse at their suburban home in Silver Spring, Maryland. Horn's son was the victim of medical malpractice and as the result of a subsequent lawsuit, had a trust worth nearly $2 million, which his father stood to inherit in the wake of his death.
Detectives discovered that Perry, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for the brutal crime, used how-to book "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors" as a guide to execute the murders. The families of the victims went on to file a class-action lawsuit against the Colorado-based publisher Paladin Press.
The attorneys representing the families then hired Smolla, a First Amendment attorney and professor at William & Mary Law School, to consult on the historic case, which took five years to settle amidst a series of shocking and bizarre developments.
This sounds like a very different film than anything Kelly has ever done before, and that's why I think it might end up being his best movie since Donnie Darko. At least I hope it is! Hopefully Cage can pull it off. Here's an interesting fact about Cage... in the over 50 movies that he starred in over the years, he's never played a lawyer.
The movie is scheduled to start shooting in Atlanta in January. Are you a fan of Kelly's work and do you think this story sounds like it will make for a good movie?