Lord of War (2005)
- Before Nicolas Cage was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- The original script for Lord of War was written over a decade before production finally began in 2005.
- During the filming of Lord of War, Nicolas Cage improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
Lord of War is a 2005 American crime drama directed by Andrew Niccol. Nicolas Cage stars as Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian-American arms dealer who rises from modest beginnings in Brighton Beach to become one of the world's most prolific illegal weapons traffickers, supplying arms to African warlords, South American dictators, and anyone else with cash. Jared Leto plays his brother Vitaly, who is consumed by the drug-fueled lifestyle, while Ethan Hawke plays Jack Valentine, an idealistic Interpol agent trying to bring Yuri down.
Andrew Niccol's screenplay was based on the real careers of several international arms dealers, and the film's opening sequence โ following a bullet from its manufacture in a factory through shipping, battlefield use, and into a child's skull โ was one of the most inventively chilling title sequences in cinema. Nicolas Cage's performance as Yuri, a man who is charming, intelligent, and utterly amoral, was among his most controlled and effective. Lord of War earned $72 million worldwide on a $50 million budget.
