Nicolas Cage Reveals How Elon Musk Got in the Way of Him Opening a Movie Studio in Las Vegas

Thanks to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage has been on a downright delightful press run as of late.

The delightfulness continued on Wednesday night with a Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance featuring (among other things) some revealing words of praise from the actor about the city of Las Vegas. Around the 1:45 mark in the video up top, Kimmel mentioned Cage has been living in his hometown for some time now, prompting the actor to note it has indeed been “about 17 years” since he first moved to the city.

“Vegas has been good to me, it really has,” Cage, whose prolific filmography includes multiple Vegas-centered entries, said. “It’s both a small town and a big city. It’s probably one of the most unique addresses in the world. If you wanna go to the strip and participate, you can. But if you wanna just go with the locals and go to some of the cool restaurants, you can do that as well.”

Speaking further on his love of Vegas, Cage mentioned his since-stalled plans to have a film studio built in the area. According to Cage, matters of Musk ultimately got in the way.

“Also, I’ve had great experiences making movies there,” Cage told Kimmel. “I mean, Leaving Las Vegas was great. Honeymoon in Vegas was great. There’s good mojo for me so I like making movies. I tried to get a movie studio built there and then Elon Musk came in and then all the money I got for the movie studio—I got $80 million—they put it into the Tesla corporation, which then ironically drained all the water out of the city. So yeah, wonderful. But, I almost had it. I almost had a studio.”

Later, Cage clarified the $80 million in question “wasn’t my money.” Musk and Tesla, meanwhile, have been linked in headlines with the larger Vegas infrastructure on multiple occasions. In 2021, for example, Musk’s The Boring Company launched its Las Vegas Convention Center loop system.