Look out, Kirk Cameron! Nicolas Cage is rebooting the Left Behind series!

Nicolas Cage is a crazy man. So, naturally, the logical project would be a reboot of a series of novels about the Christian view of the apocalypse. Makes perfect sense.

The LEFT BEHIND series is one of the bestselling series of all time with more than 65 million copies sold worldwide. They were also filmed as a series starring Kirk Cameron in the lead role. The movies were budgeted at just over $4 million and had limited theatrical runs.

Paul Lalonde of Stony Lake Entertainment will produce the mainstream reboot of the series, according to Variety. Lalonde produced the original movies through his Cloud Ten Pictures. The new movie will be budgeted at $15 million.

Plot: Left Behind tells the story of the end times (set in the contemporary era), in which true believers in Christ have been “raptured”, (i.e. taken instantly to heaven) leaving the world shattered and chaotic. As people scramble for answers, a relatively unknown, Romanian politician named Nicolae Jetty Carpathia rises to become secretary-general of the United Nations, promising to restore peace and stability to all nations. What most of the world does not realize is that Carpathia is actually the Antichrist foretold from the Bible. Coming to grips with the truth and becoming born-again Christians, Rayford Steele, his daughter Chloe, their pastor Bruce Barnes, and young journalist Cameron “Buck” Williams begin their quest as the Tribulation Force to help save the lost and prepare for the coming Tribulation, in which God will rain down judgment on the world for seven years.

When they say “mainstream” version, I wonder if they are looking to remove the overt religious nature of the story or just tone it down. A budget of $15 million is pretty small by Hollywood standards so I don’t have any hope for this to be much better than the craptastic original films.

The film is reported to be going into production in the spring and aiming for a late 2013 release.