Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Dream Scenario, A24’s surreal dark comedy from Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli that plays off Nicolas Cage’s decades-long permeation of the imagination.
In the buzzy Toronto Film Festival title produced by Square Peg — the banner of Hereditary and Beau Is Afraid helmer Ari Aster — Cage stars as Paul Matthews, an ordinary biology professor whose life takes an unexpected turn when he starts appearing in the dreams of people worldwide. Initially amused by the situation, Paul’s attitude later becomes one of horror and frustration, as peoples’ dreams of him turn into nightmares, and he’s ostracized by the public for actions taken only in their minds.
Dream Scenario marks the English-language debut of the Oslo-born Borgli, who broke out with his Cannes-premiering 2022 dark comedy Sick of Myself. In a September appearance at Deadline’s Toronto Studio, the filmmaker explained that part of the seed of the idea for his latest came in contemplating how his father might “fumble” through “trying to navigate” a viral moment, “this very modern way of getting famous.”
Cage felt that he came to the project with the “life experience” requisite for his role, given his own explosive viral moments over the years via memes and YouTube compilations like “Nicolas Cage Losing His Sh*t.”
“What happened to me as Nick Cage with the internet, nothing could have prepared me. I think I might have been the first actor who experienced anything like that,” he said. “It was confusing, it was irritating, it was stimulating, it was confounding. I didn’t know what to do with it.”
Also starring Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula and Dylan Baker, Dream Scenario was released November 10. In addition to Square Peg’s Aster, Lars Knudsen and Tyler Campellone, producers include Jacob Jaffke and Cage.
Read Borgli’s script below.
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