In an interview the other day, Nicholas Cage said he had paid off all his debts and would continue to focus on his acting career in the future.
From the Oscar emperor with unlimited scenery to the "king of bad films" in people's hearts, Cage has paid too much over the years in order to pay off debts.
How did he lose his 1 billion family property?
In 2009, Nicolas Cage collaborated with German director Werner Herzog on the film Bad Lieutenant. According to Forbes, Cage earned $40 million that year, of which the film remuneration was as high as $28 million. Like a roller coaster driving to its peak, it seems that the glorious year of 2009 has become an inflection point in Cage's life.
Cage in Bad Lieutenant
According to a number of US media reports, Cage began his own debt road in 2009, when he was chased by the IRS for $6.25 million. One of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, Cage was once worth $150 million (about 1 billion yuan). In just a few years, he not only squandered most of his family property, but also owed a bunch of debts and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
It's not unusual for celebrities and rich people to spend a fortune, but there aren't many people like Cage who have unique and unrestrained tastes. The most bizarre thing Cage bought was a 67 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus dinosaur skull, when he bid with "Little Plum" Leonardo DiCaprio, and Cage eventually snapped up the collection for $300,000.
Before that, he had bought a prehistoric bear skull, but unfortunately he accidentally destroyed it while playing billiards at home. The valuable dinosaur skull didn't stay with Cage for long, and a few years later, it was identified as a theft, and Cage had to return it to the police.
Cage also bought some strange "pets," including two cobras with albinism (later reported by neighbors and given to zoos), sharks, crocodiles, and octopuses (which cost $150,000).
At its most exaggerated, Cage had more than 50 sports cars and about 30 motorcycles. These include a limited edition Ferrari worth $1 million (just 349 in the world), a Lamborghini worth $450,000 (once owned by the Shah of Iran) and nine Rolls-Royces.
To increase his transportation options, Cage at one point bought four luxury yachts and a private golf jet. The most expensive yacht is worth $20 million, with more than 12 master bedrooms on board.
The most important of Cage's purchases was a nine-foot-tall pyramid-shaped tombstone located in the oldest cemetery in New Orleans.
The pyramid tomb is inscribed with "Omni Ab Uno", which stands for "everything from one" in Latin. Cage once revealed that after his death, he hoped to be buried here.
"The unluckiest investor ever"
In addition to buying all kinds of luxury goods without restraint, Cage is also obsessed with real estate investment.
However, compared with ordinary mansions, cage's real estate is more "pompous". He spent $7 million on a 40-acre site (some sources say $3 million), and $16 million on a castle in Germany and England, and then spent millions of dollars to renovate and beautify two castles.
One of the most incomprehensible purchases occurred in 2006, when Cage spent $3.45 million on a "haunted house." It was once the home of the notorious serial killer Mrs. Delphine LaLaurie, who tortured and murdered countless slaves in the home between 1787 and 1849, many of which occurred in the house. Normal people have to hesitate to hear the murder house, Cage is so active in buying a "haunted house", I don't know whether to say it is an investment or to satisfy their own curiosity.
Of course, luxury homes are also to be bought, with Cage's beachfront villa in California worth $25 million, his country estate in Rhode Island worth $15.7 million, and another estate in Las Vegas worth $8.5 million. At its most exaggerated, he owned 15 homes at the same time, all of which were worth a lot.
In real estate investment, Cage is an out-and-out unlucky egg, and the Guardian directly calls him "the most unlucky investor ever". After the 2008 financial crisis, people became more cautious about money, and even the richest people no longer bought properties at will, even if it was where celebrities lived.
So when Cage wanted to sell some of his properties to ease the financial pressure, he found that the road was not so easy. In 2009, Cage intended to sell his luxury home in California for $35 million, which was later reduced to $19 million and $17.5 million, and still went unpopular. Forced to do so, the mansion was forcibly auctioned off by creditors after it was recovered, and eventually auctioned off for less than $10 million.
Some media believe that in addition to the depressed economic environment, Cage's "strange aesthetic" is also a major reason why the house is difficult to sell. The Los Angeles Times once described the interior of Cage's California mansion as "marvelous but weird, with 'college fraternity-style' interiors decorated with at least 300 framed comic strip covers on the walls; and in the two bedrooms and breakfast room, there are toy model trains with laid tracks." ”
After owing millions in debt, Cage once felt his investment manager, Levine, was heavily responsible for it, accusing him of "leading him down the path of financial bankruptcy." Cage sued Levin for $20 million in October 2009, and Levine later counterclaimed that he had repeatedly alerted Cage to debt, told him he needed to earn $30 million a year to maintain his current lifestyle, and advised him not to buy castles in Britain and Germany.
Both the lawsuit and the counterclaim ended in dismissal.
Five marriages owe "money debts"
Cage's chaotic love life has also made his finances worse.
He hooked up with actress Christina Fulton in 1988 and, although not married, had a son, Weston Coppola Cage. The relationship, which did not lead to marriage, became a time bomb in Cage's life, and in 2009, Fulton sued Cage. In the lawsuit, Fulton claimed cage had committed domestic violence against him and promised to give her the house without transferring it, demanding $13 million in compensation for "mental, physical and emotional abuse" of her.
Cage has been married five times in total, and his huge emotional investment is constantly consuming his wealth. Cage's first wife, Patricia Aquet, once commented after the divorce that Cage "would only coax women with money." This is not false, in order to please Patricia, Cage once went all over the world to help her find a cherished black orchid and the signature of a reclusive writer, and looked for eight years before finally proposing marriage.
Cage with Patricia Aquette
The gifts he gave to his wives were valuable, and even in 2009, when he was in debt, Cage still took his wife to Italy for a vacation, and he was not soft on consumption.
Cage with his third wife, Alice Kim
In addition, according to the law, cage and each wife divorce, have to pay a large "break-up fee", which has also become an important reason for his significant shrinkage of property.
From movie emperor to bad film model
In 2009, Cage was subject to $6.257 million in personal income tax recovered by the IRS. At the end of that year, he had no money to pay the mortgages of two mansions, which forced them to be auctioned. In early 2010, a real estate company said it had owed more than $5 million in arrears after Cage borrowed in 2007.
Although Cage has never publicly acknowledged how much money he owes, judging by various news and interviews, his financial situation after 2009 is not optimistic. In an interview, he spoke remorsefully about his debt: "All the creditors and the IRS are chasing me, and I have to spend $20,000 a month trying to keep my mother out of a mental hospital, and it all happens at the same time." ”
After the debt problem occurred, Cage's mental state was often unstable. In 2011, Cage was arrested by the police for getting intoxicated and having a serious altercation with his wife, charged with domestic violence and drunken trouble.
Huge debts have also become a turning point in his acting career, and only by making money by constantly starring in new films can Cage continue to fill in one financial hole after another. Released in 2010, "Hai Bian Wang" was almost the last well-received film by Nicholas Cage, and after that, most of the movies he starred in had Douban ratings between 4-5.
You don't even have to click on every movie starring Cage to enjoy it carefully, just listen to the name to feel a bad smell: "Judo Star", "Frozen Land", "Doomsday Lost", "Code 211". In order to make money, Cage even traveled thousands of miles to China to make a Sino-US co-production film "The Desperate Escape of the White Ghost", which was a "superstar-studded" movie with a final Douban score of only 4.3 points.
Cage who came to China to participate in the Shanghai Film Festival
Before 2009, Cage starred in 2-3 movies per year. After the debt crisis, his average annual number of films doubled, and many of them were even online movies produced by small film companies that could not be released in theaters. After opening the "bad movie mode", Cage's salary also plummeted, from the peak of $20 million, all the way to about $3 million, and even $1 million for films, Cage also came to refuse.
Cage appeared at the special screening of "Mandy"
Although he has been circling around in the pile of bad movies, Cage has said in multiple interviews that he is very serious about every role in each movie and never perfunctory. In 2018, Cage said in an interview with the Guardian: "If I don't act, I will self-destruct." ”
Now that the debt has been paid off and the filming of "National Treasure 3" is also in preparation, I hope cage can also get rid of the nickname of "king of bad movies" as soon as possible.
Resources:
Mirror：How Nicolas Cage blew $150m fortune on islands, cars and zoo animals to end up broke
NYT：Nicolas Cage Sued by Former Money Manager
Written by: Wild Cat
Edit: Echo
Some of the image sources come from Visual China
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