MUMBAI: You’ve seen him as the alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter in Leaving Las Vegas and as the twin Kaufman brothers in the dark comedy Adaptation. Now, Oscar winner Nicholas Cage is all set to play the lead role of James Jenson in Virgin Comics’ film adaptation of their hit comic series The Sadhu.

As per a story featured in Variety magazine a couple of days ago, Cage will play Jenson, a soldier who travels to India during colonial times and becomes a spiritual warrior.  

The comic series has been written and created by Virgin Comics chief creative officer and renowned author and spiritual guru Deepak Chopra’s son Gotham. Deepak Chopra is also the co-founder of Virgin Comics, and will be penning the screenplay for the film adaptation.

Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan says, “The Sadhu is a bold, visual epic that taps into one of India’s most heralded spiritual traditions. We couldn’t be more excited to have Nicolas Cage agree to develop the lead part as we prepare to bring The Sadhu to film.”

When asked whether the film would star any Indian actors and whether the shooting would take place in India, Devarajan was tight lipped, “We cannot give any additional info about the new project yet. But we will keep you appraised as it develops.”

Virgin Comics LLC was founded only recently, in November 2005, by  Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, alongside author Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and South Asia’s publisher of comic magazines, Gotham Entertainment Group LLC. The company has offices in New York and Bangalore.  Virgin Comics titles include Devi, The Sadhu, John Woo’s Seven Brothers, Snakewoman and Ramayan 3392 A.D., amongst others.

It’s little surprise that Nicholas Cage will be playing a comic book character. The half German-half Italian actor’s passion for comics is well-known and he considers them the “the modern equivalent of mythology.” In fact, Nicholas’ last name is actually Coppola and he changed it after the comic book character Luke Cage.

Cage along with his 15 year old son Weston have also created a five-part comic book series called Enigma, which will be published by Virgin Comics, in March 2007.