Nicolas Cage is starring in a remake of the 2000 Kirk Cameron movie Left Behind (opening Friday,) which was based on a series of evangelical Christian books speculating about life after a rapturing of saved souled.The marketing campaign involves some reverse psychology from Satan.
“Please do not bring unbelievers to this movie,” a very polite Satan is quoted as saying on the movie’s poster atop a group of panicking people. Of course, the marketing is relying on the premise that Satan is a liar, so people should do the opposite of what he says, but if Satan were really lying about what he really wanted, wouldn’t he tell people to go see the movie so they would do the opposite? But that’s overthinking it because this Satan quote is drumming up a lot of interest in this film.
Nic Cage says he signed on because his DJ brother Marc, who Cage says is also a pastor. “I’d already wanted to make the movie because I thought it was such a great script and an opportunity again to do something challenging,” Cage said at a press conference for the film, “but when I saw how passionate [Marc] was, I thought, well, yeah, I want to make this movie for my brother, too.”
Cage plays an pilot who has to navigate his passengers after millions of people disappear from Earth. Jordan Sparks plays a passenger on that flight, and says she took on the role because it aligns with her own theological beliefs. “I just remember being so affected by the thought of, wow, what if my closest friends just disappeared one day? What if they just weren’t here?” she said. “As a kid that’s definitely very scary. [You might think], ‘It’s just in a book,’ but you know, when you read the Bible and you take those things to be truth, you know it is definitely something that you can think of and go, ‘Wow, that could actually happen.’”
