With just two weeks to go before filming begins, Nicholas Cage has pulled out of Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass, Deadline is reporting. Cage was to star along side Nicole Kidman, playing a husband who is kidnapped with his wife by a group of thugs looking for ransom. Cage’s departure leaves Schumacher and Co. scrambling to find a suitable replacement. Liev Schreiber is rumored to be in the running.

If there’s one thing to be said for Cage, it’s that he likes to work. And while he’s made some great movies, he also churns out horrible films without blinking an eye (The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider). So if he’s walking away from your project, it might be time to consider hanging up your director’s helmet.

See Nic Cage get his face stung off by bees after the jump…

_{"Is that boy’s head on fire?"}

Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the two directors behind the tweeked-out Crank films, are negotiating to stab their hypodermic needle of creativity into the heart of the Ghost Rider sequel, entitled Ghost Rider The Spirit of Vengeance. Nic Cage will return as Johnny Blaze, the stuntman with a serious dry scalp problem.

The film needs to go into production before November or Columbia loses the rights, so who better to take a chokehold on the project than the guys who directed two movies where speed is a major component. I can’t imagine the sequel to Ghost Rider could turn out any worse than the original. Neveldine and Taylor are basically getting permission to play with fire, and I fear not even the craft services table would be safe from their wrath. When Neveldine spots crafty serving up bananas foster across the stage, you know he’s gonna want to bathe in those flames. (THR)