I think at a time Cusack and Cage in a movie would have been big news.
I think it was briefly, though I could be wrong about that. Some flicks with some major pairings don't really get that much traction in the theaters. "Righteous Kill" featured both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, but I don't recall that the film did that well.
shareI wondered the same thing. I never heard of this movie until a friend let me borrow his disc.
Why don't they just catch that thing? How hard could it be in a place full of dead ends?
The movie budget was almost $30 million. But to my knowledge, it had release in just a few theaters for one week in the U.S. Actors like Cage and Cusack have contractual requirements that the film must be shown in a U.S. theater, and if it looks like a money-loser (the production company which owned the film must have made that decision) it will get that obligatory treatment.
There was a movie called "Red Lights" with Robert DeNiro and Sigourney Weaver a few years back, which got the same treatment in the U.S. theaters. Many examples.
The idea is that these actors want to protect their quote, and ability to work in big studio movies. If they don't protect this, they will be lumped in with Christian Slater, Gary Busey, Steven Dorff, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and all the other actors who now appear in straight-to-DVD/cable/streaming movies and would never be picked for a big role in a studio blockbuster anymore.