Nicolas Cage will take on a boatload of exotic animals in Primal

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Eleven years ago, a movie was released that told the story of an assassin releasing a crate's worth of venomous snakes into a transpacific flight. That was a little motion picture called SNAKES ON A PLANE. A decade later, Nicolas Cage has signed on to star in a film with a synopsis that instantly made me think of SNAKES ON A PLANE – even though it has different creatures and is set on a shipping freighter. They could call it "Jaguar on a Ship", but instead they're going for the less intriguing PRIMAL.

Cage will be starring in PRIMAL as 

a big-game hunter for zoos who has booked passage on a Greek shipping freighter with a fresh haul of exotic and deadly animals from the Amazon, including a rare white Jaguar — along with a political assassin being extradited to the U.S in secret. Two days into the journey, the assassin escapes and releases the captive animals, throwing the ship into chaos.

I'm totally down for a movie about Cage battling deadly exotic animals on a ship.

PRIMAL will be directed by Nick Powell, who has thirty years of stunt credits to his name and served as second unit director on films like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION. Powell has previously directed the films OUTCAST (which also starred Cage) and DARC.

Richard Leder wrote the screenplay for PRIMAL, which is the first project for the finance / development / production company Wonderfilm Media. Wonderfilm was founded by Kirk Shaw, Daniel Grodnik, Jeff Bowler, and Bret Saxon. Grodnik will be producing the film, with Michael Becker executive producing.

PRIMAL begins filming in Puerto Rico on October 23rd.