Nicolas Cage is playing Nicolas Cage in a brilliantly bizarre new movie

Taking a leaf out of John Malkovich's book – but dialling things up a notch – Nicolas Cage is set to play himself in a truly unhinged new movie.

Called The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, details of the plot were unveiled by The Hollywood Reporter over the weekend.

According to reports, Cage will be playing himself as he pursues a role in a fictional new Quentin Tarantino movie.

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Strange enough, perhaps, until you throw in that he's being pursued by a doppelgänger of himself from the 1990s who chips away at his confidence and criticises career downturn, coupled with a breakdown in his relationship with his daughter and mounting debts.

Throw in a separate plot in which he's trying to persuade a billionaire to produce his new movie – a billionaire who turns out to be a drug cartel kingpin under surveillance by the CIA for kidnapping the daughter of a Mexican politician, with Cage then recruited to go undercover – and we have what's likely to be the best movie of all time.

Lionsgate has secured the deal to release it, reportedly winning a bidding war against HBO Max and Paramount.

Confirming the story, Indiewire spoke to producers, who described the plot as 'mostly accurate', though Cage's role may be 'different'.

Cage’s last major studio movie was Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance in 2011, though he’s appeared in dozens and dozens of movies since for smaller studios.

Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, who penned the Craig Robinson and Adam Scott supernatural sitcom Ghosted – which was axed after one season – are behind the script, with Gormican directing.

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The movie is said to be a 'homage' to Cage's career, including references to actual movies like Face/Off and Leaving Las Vegas.

It's not the first time that he's appeared in such a mind-bending metaphysical style movie.

He played both the writer Charlie Kaufman and his fictional brother Donald in Spike Jonze's movie Adaptation, about Kaufman's struggle to adapt the book The Orchid Thief for the screen.

Similarly, John Malkovich, who famously starred alongside Cage in the action classic Con Air, also played himself in the meta movie Being John Malkovich... directed by Spike Jonze.