Suddenly, Cage had the distraction he needed to steal the Mona Lisa.

In news so creepy you should actually expect it to involve Nicolas Cage, the star of the upcoming films Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and The Frozen Ground visited Paris, France over the weekend as he was honored by the Musée Grévin with his very own wax statue. The tribute to Cage is dressed rather modestly in a blue button down and jeans, which is surprising because when a guy owns random dinosaur skulls, names his kid Kal-El and plans to be buried in a giant pyramid tomb, you’d think they might at least give his statue a sweet bolo tie.

While we love Cage and think it’s great to see him honored, I can’t help but think that maybe his wax statue is a bit… unflattering. In fact, it looks a little like Christopher Walken. I’m just saying the point of a tribute like this should be to honor the man at his peak of fame, and not his peak of Botox billing. Taylor Lautner’s also getting a wax statue from Musée Grévin soon. Will they make his look like a creepy great uncle? It’s only fair.

Meanwhile, in super awesome (and typical) Cage news, the actor wants to make a sequel to his classic Wicker Man. Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, “How the hell can he star in a sequel to Wicker Man, and will his co-star be his wax statue?” The answers are simple – he’ll play a ghost and probably.

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Here’s the new poster for Battleship (GRRR, SLOW-MOTION ‘SPLOSIONS!), and… Jesus, is that… a floating Decepticon that shoots lens flares? …Sounds about right, actually. Eat your heart out, JJ Abrams.

By the way, I read the script for this piece, and the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to spend $200 million making it is MIND-BLOWING. It would be a miracle if it was anything approaching “good,” and yet the subtext of someone okaying that kind of expenditure on… this… could make it sort of morbidly fascinating. This could be the Winchester Mystery House of movies.

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This trailer for Ghost Rider 2: Voodoo Glow Skull came out a couple days ago and somehow slipped by. But fear not, for that shall be REMEDIED IMMEDIATELY! Now, I know, the idea of making a second Ghost Rider film would be considered nearly universally idiotic by anyone not directly involved in the production, but teaming directors Neveldine and Taylor (the apples of Armond White’s eye) with Nic Cage is an idea so batsh*t it just might work. At the very least, it’s a train wreck I’d like to witness. And besides, it’s called Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Get it? He’s a spirit, and he’s out for vengeance! It works on so many levels!

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Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance opens February 2012, and Sony has just released the first batch of publicity stills. I feel like if you polled a diverse cross section of adults on whether making a sequel to Ghost Rider is a terrible idea, that would be about as close as you could come to a perfect consensus. And yet, with Crank‘s Neveldine and Taylor behind the cameras and Nic Cage back as the lead, there could be a perfect storm of pure batsh*ttery brewing that connoisseurs of ridiculosity like myself would be loathe to miss. Certainly, at the least, it’s an early favorite for Armond White’s favorite movie of 2012. You may recall that he once said of Neveldine and Taylor: “Neveldine-Taylor stand so lonely on the culture’s edge that their au courant ingenuity seems absolutely avant-garde when compared to standard box-office formula.” Personally I find his fin de siecle Manichean verisimilitude somewhat disquieting, but I can’t say I disagree.

Co-director Brian Taylor offered a reminder of their star’s collaborative approach: “Nic trusts us. He was actually one of the guys we wanted for Crank, but we was out of our price range. Now we’ve got him and he’s absolutely fearless. You invite him to go there, he’ll go there. He just needs to be invited – like a vampire.” [From Empire's set visit]

They wanted Nic Cage, and ended up with Jason Statham as a consolation prize. I… I’m having a hard time processing that. I may have to go lie down for a few minutes.

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Nic Cage is in Romania shooting Ghost Rider 2 this week, and you would think he’d feel right at home there, given his well-known preference for bordello-style housing. (Bordellos are Romanian, right?  That sounds right.)  But judging by the video below, it appears that he got in some sort of fight, or loud argument there.  I like to imagine it was over poorly-made toast, and the part of the video you don’t see is him demanding to know why it might be burned.  Here’s some of what you do see:

Nicolas Cage:
“You know it! So do not try to escape! Otherwise, you kill me? F**k you! I die in honor! I could die right now! Want to hit me?”

Having a regular person pissed at you with bulging forehead veins is scary enough.  When it’s Nic Cage’s forehead, I imagine it’s like being face to face with the Wizard of Oz.
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