Nic Cage Says It S Probably True That He Was Never Paid For Leaving Las Vegas

The notion was first raised by “Leaving Las Vegas” director Mike Figgis on a Hollywood Reporter podcast back in 2022. Figgis claimed that neither he nor Cage ever received their agreed upon fees of $100,000 each for their work on the film from the (now defunct) production company Lumière Pictures and Television. According to Figgis, the company engaged in some of the creative accounting that studios are sometimes alleged to perform, and claimed that the movie, which cost $4 million to produced and took in $32 million in domestic grosses alone, never actually turned a profit. At the recent South by Southwest festival in Austin, Cage was asked to confirm or deny the story. His response is that it’s “probably true,” but he clearly hasn’t missed the money either: “But I haven’t been thinking about it. I got to play a part that I absolutely had to play. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be an experience and a great movie. I wasn’t going to stop — whether they paid me or not, I was making the movie.” And as Figgis pointed out on the podcast, neither of them were exactly hurting for money following the film’s success: “I mean, my career then took off again, and the next film I did, I got really well paid. And within a year [Nic] was earning $20 million a film, so that was quite good.” Still, you have to wonder if there was ever a time in the last decade or so when Cage could have used that $100,000. But it also seems clear that he and Figgis both got along fine without it.