Famke Janssen takes on exotic animals and Nicolas Cage in Primal

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Famke Janssen Blacklist

Last September a film titled PRIMAL caught my attention with the announcement that Nicolas Cage had been cast to star in it as 

a big-game hunter for zoos who has booked passage on an Hispanic freighter with a fresh haul of exotic and deadly animals from the Amazon, along with a political assassin being extradited to the U.S in secret. The assassin escapes and releases the captive animals, throwing the ship into chaos. 

Nicolas Cage trying to survive on a ship full of deadly animals? That's something I have to see. PRIMAL was immediately added to my "must watch" list.

Director Nick Powell has now made his project even more appealing with the casting of the female lead. Famke Janssen has signed on to play a character who is "a neurologist lieutenant in the U.S. Navy."

Janssen is awesome. I look forward to watching her battle deadly animals, too.

Produced by Luillo Ruiz of The Pimienta Film Company and executive produced by Walter Josten of Blue Rider Pictures, PRIMAL is scheduled to begin filming in Puerto Rico on April 10th.

The screenplay was written by Richard Leder. The synopsis that accompanied the Cage news mentioned "a rare white jaguar" as being one of the animals on the ship. That animal isn't mentioned in the synopsis accompanying the Janssen casting news. I do hope they haven't cut out the white jaguar. It seemed to be very important… and I want to see it chase Cage and Janssen!

Source: Deadline

About the Author

Cody is a news editor and film critic, focused on the horror arm of JoBlo.com, and writes scripts for videos that are released through the JoBlo Originals and JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channels. In his spare time, he's a globe-trotting digital nomad, runs a personal blog called Life Between Frames, and writes novels and screenplays.