Nic Cage To Lawyer Up With Richard Kelly
Cage will next team with Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, and The Box) on a film based on a true life crime story that seems lifted from the pages of a Coen Brothers script.
Cage will play First Amendment attorney Rodney A. Smolla; the story is based on his book "Deliberate Intent: A Lawyer Tells the True Story of Murder by the Book." Here's the lengthy synopsis from Amazon:
Early in 1992, Lawrence Horn hired a contract killer to execute his ex-wife and his severely brain-damaged son. On March 3, 1992, the man he hired, James Perry, traveled to Silver Spring, Maryland, and murdered Horn's ex-wife and child and the boy's nurse. Perry used a book called Hit Man as an instruction manual for the murders. The subsequent criminal trial became known as the Hit Man case, and after Horn and Perry were convicted of murder, the victims' families surprised the nation by filing an unprecedented wrongful death suit against Paladin Press, publisher of Hit Man. In a controversial turn of events, Paladin was being blamed for the murders.
Distinguished attorney Rod Smolla, First Amendment expert and vigorous advocate of free speech, was approached to represent the victims' families in the civil suit against Paladin. Smolla initially declined, but after reading Hit Man and likening it to "a loaded pistol or a vial of poison," he decided to take on the case, even though it seemed to go against his abiding belief in the First Amendment. Smolla argued that if Paladin Press knew and intended that its murder manual Hit Man would be used in the actual planning and execution of contract killings, Paladin was not entitled to immunity under the First Amendment. In an appeal that stunned the legal world, Smolla's argument prevailed and was affirmed by the Supreme Court. Deliberate Intent is the dramatic story of the events behind this landmark case--a story that includes murder, trials, and appeals and, most important, raises fascinating and difficult questions about our most cherished freedom.
Personally I'm hoping this gives Cage the chance to unleash his best Saul Goodman impersonation and eat the scenery in another Bad Lieutenant- style performance.
The film, Amicus, is due to shoot in early 2013.
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