Nicolas Cage is one of the most divisive figures in the film industry: on one hand, he's an Oscar-winning actor who's worked with almost every major director worth mentioning, yet on the other, he tirelessly spends much of his time slumming in terrible, low-rent thrillers for a quick pay-day, in an attempt to pay off his gigantic tax bill. If you haven't already seen it, you should certainly check out Simon Gallagher's article about 10 movies that were almost ruined by Nicolas Cage, and now, we're going to examine 13 movies which would certainly have been much better with Cage's unmistakably eccentric presence. Now, few people are going to seriously argue that The Matrix, The Wrestler, The Lord of the Rings, Dumb and Dumber, Shrek and so on would actually have benefited from Cage taking the lead role, but what about other movies he turned down that he was actually suited for? And what about those roles that were written for him but for whatever reason didn't pan out? On top of all this, we've also included a bunch of our own speculative picks whereby another classically barmy Nicolas Cage performance could have been forged, making said film infinitely more memorable than it ended up being. Still, we don't expect universal agreement on some of our more out-there choices, so feel free to judge for yourselves and make your own suggestions in the comments!
13. Any Expendables Movie
The Role: Pretty much any character Why Nic Cage Would Have Improved It: If you believe Sylvester Stallone, this one actually came close to happening for both The Expendables 2 and 3, even though around a year ago, Cage went on the record and assured us it wasn't going to happen for EX3, and he ended up being "replaced" by Kelsey Grammer. There is literally no role in these movies that Cage wouldn't be totally, ridiculously awesome in, be it as a crazy mercenary who helps out the Expendables during a firefight (ala Chuck Norris in EX2), or as a hammy, mugging bad guy ala Jean-Claude Van Damme. Either way, Cage's intensely-harnessed insanity would go down extremely well with the target audience, and it's safe to say that no matter how bad the rest of the movie might have been, seeing Nic Cage hanging out with Sly and co. would have been an unadulterated cinematic delight. Our gut tells us he'd be a lot more fun as a foe rather than a friend of the Expendables, but hey, considering the franchise is showing no sign of slowing down, there's always hope for the future...