Nicolas Cage’s new self-parodying role sees him rescue Catalan president’s daughter

Nicolas Cage’s latest blockbuster flick soon to reach cinemas on our shores sees the iconic American actor play a self-parodying version of himself in which part of the plot involves him being tasked with a mission to rescue the kidnapped daughter of the president of Catalonia.

In ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’, Cage finds himself at a low ebb of his acting career and decides to take a job that more resembles being the friend of a superfan of his in Mallorca, before realizing that this superfan has other illicit dealings that brings Cage into difficult situations he hadn’t expected.

In the original script, one of the characters intends to kidnap the daughter of the President of Catalonia to influence elections.

Spanish dubbing Mexico confusion

Initially, there was some confusion over whether the version of the film dubbed in Spanish included the reference to Catalonia. It had first been reported that it was removed and replaced with Mexico. 

However, it now appears that this confusion was nothing more than just an error.

The original script included references to Mexico, the president and president’s daughter of Mexico, but in the end, this was changed to Catalonia. 

The distributor of the film in Spain, Diamond Films, confirmed to the Catalan News Agency that this part of the plotline will remain in Catalonia.

The film is set mostly in Mallorca, so the producers decided that including references to Catalan politics would be more appropriate for the area where the film was based. 

Ricard Balada, an actor who played the partner of the president’s kidnapped daughter in the movie, speculated on Catalan radio station RAC1 that the change from Mexico to Catalonia was made because the work was filmed in Europe and set in Mallorca. Balada hypothesized that the producers took advantage of the "uproar" due to the Catalan push for independence, and decided to include references to Catalan politics instead of Mexico.

It’s thought that the confusion arose from a plot summary uploaded to the website FilmAffinity in Spanish which makes no reference to Catalonia but instead, to Mexico, as it was likely based on the original script for the film and not the updated version.