This 1995 Brutal Drama Failed at the Box Office Before Winning an Oscar for Nicolas Cage

Nobody was fighting to make Leaving Las Vegas.

The source material was John O'Brien's semi-autobiographical 1990 novel about a screenwriter who moves to Vegas with the explicit plan to drink himself to death. The book had gone out of print.

The story has no redemption arc and no real studio appeal, so it seems a little unmakeable on the surface. Director Mike Figgis took the job specifically because he thought it was so uncommercial the studio would leave him alone.

He was right. And then Nicolas Cage won the Oscar.

But it turns out, Cage ended up with the gold statue and zero dollars. Figgis got the same. The studio got the money. The audience got one of the most brutally honest films about addiction ever made.

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The Book Few Read

O'Brien's novel was out of print when Lumiere Pictures financed it. An art gallery owner found it in a used bookstore and passed it to Figgis, according to TCM.

O'Brien struggled with alcoholism for years. His father described the novel as his suicide note. (O'Brien died by suicide on April 10, 1994, two weeks after signing away the film rights, with a six-figure check waiting in his mailbox.)

His family was invited to set, and the film's success brought his unpublished work posthumously into print.

Source material doesn't have to be a bestseller. The most commercially ignored stories can become some of the most artistically significant films. And you don’t have to make them think it will be awards bait.

"I made that movie saying to myself I'm never gonna win an Academy Award," Cage said in 2018, per TCM. "I said I don't care, let's just make the movie. Let's be down and dirty."

How to Make a Film Nobody Will Fund

Figgis shot on Super 16mm rather than 35mm, which is considered an arthouse format, but a practical necessity given the film’s budget. Lumiere financed it at $4 million, low even by 1995 standards.

They stole locations, with no permits for several street scenes on the Las Vegas Strip. Figgis shot one-take guerrilla style to avoid the police.

“I've always hated the convention of shooting on a street, and then having to stop the traffic, and then having to tell the actors, 'Well, there's meant to be traffic here, so you're going to have to shout,'” Figgis told FilmCritic.com. “And they're shouting, but it's quiet, and they feel really stupid, because it's unnatural. You put them up against a couple of trucks, with it all happening around them, and their voices become great. As long as you have a good sound recording system, it's so much better. So I liked that. As soon as they said I couldn't have a traffic closure, I said, 'Great!’”

A small team, shooting fast in natural environments, can yield strong results. Learn more about guerrilla shooting.

What Nicolas Cage Did to Prepare

Acting drunk is one of the more unique acting challenges. Michael Caine and Denzel Washington have said that to play drunk, you need to play like you’re desperately acting sober.

Cage, who’s a bit notorious in his methods, binge drank in Dublin for two weeks and had a friend film him to study his own speech patterns.

"That's the beauty of staying in a hotel; you can drink and drink until you fall over, and no one need see you,” he said (via WENN). “I must admit, it was one of the most enjoyable pieces of research I've ever had to do for a part.”

For most of the film, Cage tasted alcohol and spit it out, taking inspiration from Albert Finney's approach in Under the Volcano. He had a “drinking coach,” a family friend, Tony Dingman.

For one casino breakdown scene, he and Dingman drank Sambuca until Cage was actually blacked out. The improvised line "I am his father!" made the final cut.

“I'd made a decision that at some point in the movie, I want to see if I can get a real blackout on camera,” he said in the commentary (via ScreenRant). “Dangerous, crazy, I would never do it again. I don't act with alcohol or anything. I act dry.”

Cage described it as a "high-risk experiment in film performance."

Leaving Las Vegas Credit: United Artists

A Movie About Dying in Vegas Becomes an Awards Juggernaut

The film had a limited release on Oct. 27, 1995, then expanded in 1996, gaining awards traction. And rightfully so. Cage is really good in this part.

The team ended up with four Academy Award nominations: Best Actor (Cage, won), Best Actress (Elisabeth Shue, nominated), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay (both Figgis).

Cage also took the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama.

Roger Ebert named it his best film of 1995 and later ranked it among the best films of the decade.

Films with uncomfortable subject matter can find their audience, using the same word-of-mouth dynamics we’ve covered in the context of indie distribution.

Nobody Got Paid

Despite grossing $32 million worldwide on a $4M budget, Lumiere Pictures told Figgis and Cage that the film never went into profit.

Neither received their promised $100 thousand fee.

“They said the film never went into profit,” Figgis revealed this on THR's It Happened in Hollywood podcast, speaking of Lumiere Pictures, which financed the film.

Figgis's response to the whole thing is a little glib. “Whatever. 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.”

Hollywood accounting is a documented phenomenon that can render a profitable film technically unprofitable on paper. The business side is daunting, but understand how distribution deals and profit definitions work as best you can as you get into it.

What the Film Did for Cage's Career

Leaving Las Vegas is Cage's only Oscar win and remains one of his five favorite scripts he's ever read, alongside Raising Arizona , Vampire's Kiss , Adaptation , and Dream Scenario.

He's said he prefers making indie films like Pig and Leaving Las Vegas to major studio fare.

"That was the deal, that I was always going to go back to the well of independent drama, my roots," Cage told The New York Times. "With the bigger movies, there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, too many people giving you notes. But with an experience like Dream Scenario, I’m with my director, and we have the floor, and we’re experimenting together. It’s important to have that intimacy to get to the really truthful expression of film performance. That’s harder to do on a big movie."

The film was a turning point. Cage pivoted to blockbusters after this (Con Air , Face/Off , The Rock), then later in his career cycled back to indie work.

We wouldn’t recommend doing everything Figgis and Cage did here, like going unpaid or stealing locations, but it’s clear there was a passion for the work that paid off.