NICOLAS Cage has been talking about his forthcoming remake of Bad Lieutenant and has promised that the re-imagining will be a vastly different film from Abel Ferrara’s cult classic.

Speaking at a London press conference for his new movie Knowing (released today in cinemas, March 25), the actor said he was looking forward to working with director Werner Herzog and described the idea of reviving the Bad Lieutenant as “so audacious I couldn’t resist”.

He continued: “One of the things that Werner came out with was he felt that the movie would be kind of like a franchise, in that you could have more than one Bad Lieutenant; that this movie is not a remake, it’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. You could have Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call London next. It could happen and that’s what makes it interesting. I’m not the same cop that Harvey was. I’m a different cop. I’m a New Orleans cop.”

Cage, whose previous remake was the ill-fated Wicker Man update, added: “Bad Lieutenant, in my opinion, really was still very much in a Judea-Christian programme. I liked it. But Werner’s Bad Lieutenant goes more into the existential point of view.”

Speaking at the same press conference, the actor revealed that he no longer intended to make films that required him to kill people – and will be hanging up his gun for the forseeable future.

“I like the idea of giving a child something to look forward to, especially in these times. They might smile and say: “I’m going to go and see National Treasure. I’m going to go and see Sorcerer’s Apprentice…”

“With that I feel I’m applying myself in the best way; and also that I don’t have to kill so many people on camera. Just the metaphor of that, the symbol of that, the hieroglyphic of that, I find troubling on some level… just personally right now.

“I realise I may be digging myself into a rabbit hole by saying that, but I feel that I can affect positively more people if I go into fantasy and go into science fiction and go into intelligent horror, because it’s of the metaphor and of the imagination.”

Read the full Knowing interview with Nicolas Cage

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