Alex Clements & Ivan Radford | On 06, Aug 2013

It remains one of life’s great tragedies that there has never been a sequel to Face/Off.

Rivalled only by The Vampire’s Kiss for sheer bonkers Cageness, John Woo’s action film raised all kinds of questions about science, national security and Nicolas Cage’s face. Questions that demanded answering and exploring in even greater depth – and with even bigger explosions.

It is a universally accepted rule that a sequel to a high concept movie is impossible to do without Raising The Stakes. Face/Off’s concept was so far ahead of its time, though, that no one has ever been able to come up with a way to do so. Until now.

Below are pitches for three Face/Off sequels, which will Raise The Stakes to such a height that Felix Baumgartner himself will look upon those stakes and say: “Ooooo.”

 

Face/Off 2 (Face2Off)

Nicolas cage plays two sets of identical twins, all of whom have their faces swapped. Not just one swap; each twin will have multiple face swapping scenes with each other. In fact, a full 20% of screen time will be devoted to the swapping of faces. What’s that, you ask? Won’t that be confusing, pointless and/or insane? To which we answer, we thought you were here to see Face2Off, not Simon Has A Ball, It Is A Big Red Ball: The Movie.

Each twin will be a unique and identifiable character thanks to the twin miracles of Latex Prosthesis and Nic Cage’s Acting Prowess. Indeed, not only will they be endowed with some kind of visual identifier (a facial scar, a moustache, and/or a fake nose) but each will also have their own patented Nic Cage accent.

Where will these accents be from? Who knows? Maybe one twin is from Louisiana? Maybe another is English? The real key to psychological depth in a character (as shown by their accent) is not giving everything away. Would Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master be a masterpiece if Joaquin Phoenix flat out said “I represent mankind’s animal nature, and I cannot be denied” in the first 10 minutes? Each of Nic Cage’s accents will represent the same level of mystery and depth as a whole two and a half hour P.T. Anderson film.

Will it just be the accents that he magnificently dances between, like an expert fencer switching stances? Not so, for he will also vary the intensity and quality of his performance between sibling/nemesis, thereby completely traversing the Serious/Mental-Brilliant/Rubbish axes of The Nic Cage Matrix.

Created by TheShiznit

The Nic Cage twins will continue to swap faces until the face swapping explodes into a climax at a wedding. More specifically, four weddings, when it’s revealed at the height of the action that each pair of identical twins each marry another pair of identical siblings. The catch? These ones are female. The double catch? They are also played by Nicolas Cage.

The final act unravels in a blur of swapped male and female faces as Nic Cage and Nic Cage must stop Nic Cage and Nic Cage from marrying Nic Cage and Nic Cage whilst themselves wedding Nic Cage and Nic Cage – all before a nuclear bomb blows up Manhattan.

Face/Off 3 (Face3/O33)

Fac3/Off is set 20 years after the events of Face/Off 2, when Nicolas Cage has settled down with his wife (also Nicolas Cage) and they have had several children (all played by Nicolas Cage). His identical twin brother (Nicolas Cage) lives in a room above their garage after his own wife (Nicolas Cage) went mad when she walked into a hall of mirrors during a family holiday. He occasionally mows the lawn.

But Nicolas Cage’s peaceful domestic life is thrown into disarray when Nicolas Cage discovers that his wife is actually – in a surprise casting decision designed to recoup the massive financial losses suffered by Face/Off 2 – John Travolta wearing a Nicolas Cage mask.

Now, to save himself, himself, his wife (himself) and several tiny Nicolas Cages, Nicolas Cage must travel back in time… to the original Face/Off to stop John Travolta from stealing his face in the first place.

Events unfold with a self-aware ironic tone that is new to the franchise, as Nic Cage, Nic Cage and Nic Cage are inserted into the background of scenes from Face/Off while constantly swapping faces with secondary characters in order to blend in.

The movie reaches an explosive climax when John Travolta realises what is going on and also travels back in time, disguised as Nicolas Cage, to stop Nicolas Cage. All of the Nicolas Cages end up fighting each other atop a giant speedboat in a sequence that will be heavily trailed in cinemas accompanied by the hashtag #APOCAGELYPSE.

J.J. Abrams will direct.

Face/Off 4 (F4ce/Off, or The Face/Off)

It is 10 years after the events of Fac3/O33. Paramount Pictures and Touchstone Pictures have both gone bankrupt thanks to spiralling CGI budgets on Face/Off 3. Desperate to recover the massive deficit, the previous film’s Executive Producer Nicky Cages (who looks like Nicolas Cage but, confusingly, is not actually Nic Cage) teams up with a mad scientist to put Nic Cage’s face onto a hoard of killer bees. Their aim? To kill Nicolas Cage, then sell his face as a souvenir to a high-profile Japanese businessman, thereby becoming rich and successful again – and ending the repeated instances of people mistaking Nicky Cages for Nic Cage.

Nic Cage, meanwhile, is no longer living with his identical twin brother (Nic Cage) and is on mildly unfriendly terms with John Travolta (still with Nic Cage’s face). But the trio must put aside the differences to Face/Off one more time…

The finale sees Nic Cage, Nic Cage and Nic Cage fighting 4,000 killer bees, all with Nic Cage’s face. The sequel will go straight-to-VOD.

 

And there you have it: the Face/Off sequels the world has been waiting for.

All offers from major studios will be considered.

 

CAGE WEEK. As Stolen arrives on VOD and DVD, we present an entire week devoted to celebrating the boggly-eyed, big-grinned, strange-haired insanity that is Nicolas Cage.

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