Nicolas Cage and 50 Cent. There’s an acting double act we never thought we’d see. Particularly after watching Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.
The lacklustre performance of the rapper’s semi-autobiographical gangster film obviously hasn’t put him – or Hollywood – off the idea of Curtis Jackson appearing in anything longer than a music video.
They’ll star together in The Dance, a Universal film based on the life of prison boxing coach Billy “The Kid” Roth. The movie draws most of its inspiration – and title from a 2003 documentary about Roth by John Darling Haynes. Cage will play the former successful prizefighter who spent more than 40 years as a volunteer boxing coach in Louisiana prisons.
Fiddy is signed up as his most promising pupil, a boxer Roth believes can go all the way if it wasn’t for the pesky matter of his life sentence in jail. Neil Tolkin (The Emperor’s Club) will write the script. There’s no director attached yet.