"I love to see a fat guy score."
Why's that, John?
"Because first you get a fat guy spike, and then you get the fat guy dance!"
John Madden was a football player, a great football coach, and an even greater football announcer, but what's been underrated was John Madden's ability to play himself. The lines above from his role in football flick The Replacements starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, and a somehow-constantly-foaming-at-the-mouth Jon Favreau have lived rent-free in my head for at least 20 years. Even if he was reading someone else's script, everything John Madden said just came out like a John Madden line, a trait he shares with Nicolas Cage—I can't imagine more exciting casting for a John Madden biopic.
Announced today, Cage will be playing the late announcer in a a film that is at least in part "the origin story of Madden NFL, one of the biggest videogame franchises of all time," according to The Hollywood Reporter. Honestly, I think it could work. The usual sports biopic is all about the glory, and I really don't think we need two hours of teens/twenties/thirties Madden becoming the Master of Football before a final scene where he dramatically dons a headset and steps into the announcer's booth—cut to black over the roar of the crowd. At the same time, an entire film dedicated to the making of the videogame would be as eyeroll-worthy as last year's flick about Air Jordans. Maybe meeting in the middle will result in something that's not entirely conventional and not a pure Ode to Brand.
Whatever kind of script we're looking at, I expect Cage will harness some true Big Dog energy here. He's the kind of actor who knows better than to try a perfect impression; he's going to come up with some wild take on Madden's voice and an embodiment of Madden's oversized personality that feels right, whether or not it's "accurate." Cage is also very good at playing himself, and has done it twice recently—in his film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and in Dead By Daylight, where he promised "when you're playing the Nic Cage survivor, I want you to know that we're one, that we're fused."
I'm sure he'll be bringing the same dedication to a scene in which he teaches a bunch of computer nerds how to make a football tackle feel genuine on an Apple II. When he lets loose a surprise BOOM! they'll all do a little jump. It won't be in the script; he'll just feel it.
I do wish someone else was directing this movie for Cage other than David O. Russell, who's been accused of some pretty gross stuff and bad behavior on movie sets over the years. Just days ago George Clooney called Russell "a miserable fuck" unprompted during an interview, so he's clearly still bitter over the movie they made together 25 years ago. Not really the good vibes I'd hope for from a Madden film, to be honest.
"Nicolas Cage, one of our greatest and most original actors, will portray the best of the American spirit of originality, fun, and determination in which anything is possible as beloved national legend John Madden," Russell said in a casting announcement about the film. "Together with the ferocious style, focus, and inspired individualism of Al Davis, owner of the underdog Oakland Raiders, the feature will be about the joy, humanity and genius that was John Madden in a wildly inventive, cool world of the 1970s."
No word on when to expect the film, but I'd bet sometime later next year.
