Nicolas Cage’s ‘Outcast’ Set for January Relaunch in China

Arclight Films’ 12th century war romance movie Outcast, featuring Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen and directed by Nick Powell, has been given a release date after it was mysteriously pulled at the last minute in September.

“It’s our understanding that the China release will be mid-January, and US release is on Feb. 6th,” said Mike Gabrawy, chief creative officer at Arclight Films.

Earlier, the Canadian distributor Entertainment One said it would release the action movie stateside in February next year.

The Australian-U.S. production company Arclight was one of the main companies involved in the project, but it was left in the dark as to why Yunnan Film Group (YFG) pulled the film on the eve of its day-and-date domestic and international release in late September.

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Christensen and other cast members were in China for the launch when it was pulled.

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Arclight is handling international sales for the movie excluding China and North America.

Based on a screenplay by James Dormer (who penned episodes of British TV series Spooks and Strike Back), Outcast revolves around two jaded Crusaders who chose to wander off toward the East, finally arriving in western China, where they become entangled in romance and antagonism with local royalty.

Some distribution sources said at the time that YFG was unhappy with the number of screens made available for the film.

The picture is a Canada-France-China co-production. It was made in English but qualified as an official co-production under the guidelines stipulated by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, with Yunnan Film Group providing more than half of the undisclosed budget.