Nicolas Cage says Elon Musk scuppered his plans to build £61m Vegas film studio

‘I almost had it. I almost had a studio,’ actor said

Nicolas Cage has claimed that his plans to build a film studio were unintentionally thwarted by Elon Musk.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday (20 April), the actor said that a reallocation of Nevada state funding had prevented him from being able to put his own studio in Las Vegas.

“Vegas has been good to me, it really has,” he said of the city, where he’s lived since 2006. “There’s a good mojo for me there.”

Cage then said that he’d had “great experiences” making films such as Leaving Las Vegas and Honeymoon in Vegas there.

“I tried to get a movie studio built there, and then Elon Musk came in and all the money I got for the movie studio – I got $80 million (£61m) – they put it into the Tesla cooperation,” he said.

“Which then, ironically, drained all the water out of the city.”

He added: “I almost had it. I almost had a studio.”

Cage has lived in Las Vegas since 2006 (Getty Images)

“That’s a lot of money to spend so you don’t have to take an hour flight to LA, for sure,” Kimmel replied, with Cage explaining: “Well, it wasn’t my money.”

Cage is currently starring in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent opposite Pedro Pascal. You can read The Independent’s four-star review here.

In recent years, the actor has become known for appearing in numerous video-on-demand films, but he has defended them in multiple new interviews.

“I think that I did some of the best work of my life in that so-called ‘direct to video’ period,” he said.

“I’ll put any of those movies up [against] the first 30 years... It was the best workshop, the best acting class I could have. I think it really was practice. I felt it made it so much easier for me to access my emotional content or my imagination.”

Last month, Cage explained that the basis behind accepting so many VOD roles stemmed from a refusal to file for bankruptcy, after reportedly spending his entire $150m (£115m) fortune and owing $6.3m (£4.8m) in property taxes.